Elastic Heart
by bravevulnerability
Summary: 'Just another job, that's all Richard Castle would ever be. Maybe if she repeated it enough, she would actually believe it.' Based on a gifset by veraflynns on tumblr.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: A huge thank you to Jamie for assisting me with this first chapter and for all of the helpful tips that provided valuable improvement for my writing style.**

* * *

_"I've got thick skin and an elastic heart,_  
_But your blade it might be too sharp_  
_I'm like a rubber band until you pull too hard,_  
_I may snap and I move fast_  
_But you won't see me fall apart_  
_'Cause I've got an elastic heart"_

_-Elastic Heart, Sia_

* * *

Kate was fidgeting. She spun the half empty cup of decaf in front of her, watching the dark brown liquid ripple and rush against the porcelain walls of the mug. She had done this plenty of times now, enough to be familiar with it, but she still tended to feel the signature touch of apprehension course through her system every time she waited to meet with a client, the unease of being on the wrong side of the law.

She sighed and brought the cooled coffee to her lips, swallowed it down with distaste. She preferred regular coffee, but she wouldn't risk spiking her clamoring nerves with caffeine. She lowered the cup back to the table just as the café door swung open, the bell atop the entrance singing at the arrival of a new customer. Blonde, tall, dressed in designer clothing – definitely her client.

The woman spotted her in the corner booth at the back and Kate nodded to signal her over, lifting her chin in a feigned air of confidence and watching in disinterest as the woman who had supposedly hired her strutted across the tiled floor.

"Mrs. Castle, I presume?" Kate inquired as the woman slid into the booth opposite her, setting her purse beside her hip and clasping her hands under her chin.

"Cowell," she corrected with an icy smile, her eyes gleaming with a lethal form of excitement that set Kate on edge, already convincing her that she shouldn't be at all surprised this woman wanted someone dead. "Pleasure to meet you…?"

"My name is not necessary in this process," Kate answered, retrieving a notepad from her bag and placing it on the table in front of her. In an effort to keep negotiations with clients as impersonal as possible, Kate never gave her real name to anyone, relying instead on an arsenal of aliases or the always preferable option of anonymity when possible. "We're only here to discuss business."

Gina nodded in approval. "I appreciate the professionalism of your approach to this. I'm glad they sent you."

"Happy to be of service," Kate muttered. She'd never been particularly thrilled to partake in this form of service, but circumstances had decided her fate long ago and her life wasn't going to change anytime soon. Not until she found what she needed. "What is it you need me for, Ms. Cowell?"

"It's simple really," Gina started with the pleasant smile still in place, but her eyes darkened. "My husband and I… our marriage has seemingly run its course. I would have settled for divorce, but I made the mistake of signing a pre-nup."

"And you're not willing to give up your lifestyle?" Kate deduced, but with no judgment in her tone. She made it a point to never allow her personal views on a subject's reasoning for murder to interfere with the job, especially not when in front of the client. The last thing she wanted to do was evoke defensiveness.

"Precisely. If my husband was to fall victim to a horrible accident of some kind, it would work out quite well for me financially."

Kate jotted down the information in a scrawl only she could read, a code similar to the one her mother used to go by, just in case. "Any specific kind of accident?"

Gina shrugged, a pleased smile flirting along the corners of her mouth. "I'm not picky. I think something simple would work fine. You know, poison in his meal, a random stabbing in a back alley."

Kate clenched her fist around the pen in her hand.

"All that matters is that there is no possible way this is ever tied back to me."

"I can assure you, Ms. Cowell, you have nothing to worry about. Did you bring the required materials?"

"Ah, yes." Gina pulled her purse into her lap, retrieving a manila envelope from the tote and sliding it across the table towards Kate. "All you need to know about him is in there," she informed Kate, nodding to the envelope. She reached into the bag once more and presented a smaller, but thicker envelope next, placing it atop the one holding her husband's information. "Half of your payment is there. You'll get the rest once the job is done."

Kate plucked the smaller package from the table, carefully removing the thin strip of tape keeping the flap in place and skimming her fingers through the layers of hundred dollar bills. Satisfied with the amount enclosed, she folded the flap back down, smoothing her thumb over the still functional tape to seal the envelope. She then slipped both packages into her backpack and returned her gaze to the expectant woman across the table.

"Time frame?"

"Within the next few weeks would be nice. I'm not in a hurry, but sooner rather than later is best," Gina decided after only a second of thought. "I doubt it would take you long to seduce him anyway, since that is the route I recommend you take. A woman with your looks – he'll be stumbling all over himself for you within a day."

Gina's eyes flickered to a group diners inhabiting a nearby table, tracking the other patrons with an assessing gaze, and Kate used the moment of reprieve to take a deep breath, tucking a stray curl of hair behind her ear. What her newest client was asking her to do was out of her comfort zone, hardly part of her job description, but her physical appearance tended to play a role in her profession, especially when the target was a male. And Gina was paying her to do exactly as she instructed, so if seduction was part of the assignment, Kate could handle it.

"You do know it costs extra, to have me associating with the target like that."

"No worries," Gina waved her off. "If you pull this off without a hitch, I'll even give you a bonus."

Gina rose from her seat, smoothed her hands over her pencil skirt and through the perfectly styled waves of her hair, looking far too put together for a woman who had just organized her husband's murder.

"Oh, and a suggestion?"

Kate gritted her teeth behind a closed lipped smile. Her time with Gina Cowell was already beginning to wear on her patience and she didn't need some controlling gold-digger telling her how to do her job. "Of course."

"He'll be at a book signing in Los Angeles this upcoming weekend. I included his schedule and hotel information in the packet. I figured it might be easier if this incident occurred while he was away from home."

Kate nodded. It was a smart plan, a premeditated plan. "I'll take your idea into consideration."

"Great. There's a plane ticket and hotel reservation in there if you decide to go through with it," she grinned, her gaze narrowing just slightly, expectantly, and Kate realized it wasn't really a suggestion at all.

"You received the contract from my employer?" Kate questioned and Gina tilted her head towards Kate's backpack.

"I included it with the information."

"And you're sure this is what you want?"

Gina arched an eyebrow at her. "Positive."

Kate sighed internally, but nodded her acceptance.

"His name?" Kate asked as Gina slung her purse over her shoulder.

The woman smiled at her, a show for other patrons who may be watching the two of them, but the smile wasn't pleasant up close. It was wicked and conniving and sent a chill down Kate's spine.

"Richard Castle."


	2. Chapter 2

Castle ducked and rolled, poked his head around the wall that would make him vulnerable to the stairs, but saw no signs of movement. Silently, he crept downwards, keeping his weapon raised, but just as he reached the landing, his gear lit up and screeched with a sound of defeat.

Rick spun on his heel to see Alexis standing triumphantly at the top of the stairs he had just tiptoed down, her plastic gun in her hand and a victorious smirk on her lips.

He gaped up at her. "How?"

She blew at the imaginary smoke swirling up from her gun and shrugged. "I'm just that good."

"You cheated. I don't know how, but you did."

Alexis rolled her eyes as she trotted down the stairs, bypassing him as she stripped the glowing laser tag gear from her frame, prepared to store it away in the front closet for the evening.

"C'mon Dad, don't be a sore loser," she chided, taking his gear for him as well and arranging it neatly in its place at the back of the closet. "You'll have another chance to beat me tomorrow."

He threw her an exaggerated pout, trudging after her petulantly while she skipped into the kitchen and settled on a high stool at the bar while he retrieved two containers of ice cream from the fridge, their usual post-laser tag snack.

He scooped two servings of mint chocolate chip into a bowl for Alexis and the same amount of rocky road for himself, but before Alexis could dig into her serving, he threw his arms out in a dramatic gesture of panic.

"Wait!"

Alexis paused, her spoon already lifted in preparation while her eyes lingers on him with impatience.

Castle swung the refrigerator door open, retrieved the whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and small container of cherries, nearly spilling the ingredients across the kitchen floor as he juggled the items.

Alexis huffed in exasperation, patiently twirling her spoon between her fingers as she waited.

"Hey Dad?" she asked once he finally had the toppings safely spread out on the countertop.

Castle uncapped the whipped cream bottle and created an impressive, swirling hill atop her melting pyramid of ice cream. He drizzled the chocolate sauce on next and finished his edible artwork with the signature cherry on top.

"Yes, Pumpkin?"

"You know you can talk to me, right?" she inquired, digging her spoon into the side of her ice cream. "I know I'm only thirteen and you're the adult, but I'm here for you," his daughter assured him with her wide blue eyes shimmering in sincerity and fixated on his.

Rick lowered his own spoon of ice cream back into his bowl, his brow already beginning to crease.

"I – yes, I realize you're a very good listener and you know I always enjoy our conversations, but is there something specific I should be talking to you about, Alexis?"

She diverted her eyes, a shyness he knew all to well settling over her as she shifted in her seat and stirred the melting ice cream around in her bowl, mixing it with the whipped cream and chocolate, leaving the cherry to float alone in the mess of sugary sweetness.

"Well, I saw the paper today…"

Oh no.

"Alexis, I thought we had a deal."

"I didn't _know _you were going to be on Page Six," she defended and Castle sighed, mimicking her actions with his spoon and sloshing his ice cream around with his toppings.

It was their rule that Alexis never read any articles about him, whether they be on the internet, in the newspaper, or on the television. He didn't want his daughter's view of him marred by what was spewed about him in the tabloids.

"Are you going to divorce Gina?" she asked suddenly and Castle's eyes darted up.

She didn't look hopeful about the idea, but not necessarily mournful either. He had always hoped Gina would fulfill the role of a mother figure for his daughter, it had been one of the main draws of marrying her, but he realized now that his second wife and Alexis had remained acquaintances at best.

"I don't know," he admitted, because he might as well tell her the truth. It was better than allowing her to believe what the Ledger had published about his very public fight with Gina at Le Cirque last night.

"Do you…" Alexis tucked a stray strand of her long red hair behind her ear. She was attempting to grow her bangs out and he saw with a heavy heart that the layered style currently framing her face made her look older. "Do you love her?"

Castle released his spoon and cradled his jaw in his hand as he stared back at his daughter. Alexis copied him and he smiled gently at her.

The concept of love while raising a teenage girl was a tricky one, but he wanted Alexis to grow up knowing what it truly was. He had never been able to give her a great example of it, not with her own mother and obviously not with Gina either. Alexis was smart, too smart sometimes, and he feared that sooner or later, her belief in love would wither away into nothing but an untouchable fairytale.

"I think I love Gina as more of a friend," he hedged, choosing his words carefully. Gina was hardly his friend right now, but even at the best of times, he would definitely categorize their relationship as nothing more than platonic. "The way I feel about her is… ordinary. And I don't want ordinary, I want…"

"Magic?" she whispered with a tiny smile. "Like the butterflies I get when I see the boy I like in class?"

He glared at her for that, but when she laughed he couldn't help smiling at her for it.

"Yes, something like that," he conceded.

"But if you don't feel that way about Gina, why did you marry her in the first place?" Alexis questioned, serious again, yearning to understand, always craving the answers.

Castle shrugged. "I guess I hoped I would feel that way about her in time."

Alexis pursed her lips and tilted her head to one side in thought. "Have you ever been in true love?"

"Maybe once or twice."

"Gram said the only woman you ever truly loved was your girlfriend in college," she pointed out, her eyes alight with the knowledge, and he needed to have a talk with his mother about which discussions were off limits with his daughter.

"Gram likes to tell over dramatic stories."

She huffed and returned to her dilapidated ice cream, scooped a soupy spoonful into her mouth.

"What about love at first sight?" she questioned next, because apparently they were going to discuss every form of potential love he had come across in his life today.

"Well, I don't…" He paused for a moment, thinking back to a time almost a decade ago, to one of the rare occasions when he had left Alexis with his mother and forced himself to go out clubbing to ensure Richard Castle remained an active name in the papers. "Actually, I met a girl once, at this party."

Alexis leaned forward on her elbows in interest, her lips pursed in quiet excitement as her eyes widened with anticipation. His daughter was always up for a good story.

"I can't really remember her name." He squinted at the blurry vision he still kept tucked away in his mind, tried yet again to produce the name she had whispered to him in the crowded night club, but as usual, he came up blank. "But in the space of maybe two hours - we met, we talked, we danced, we fell in love."

"And then?" she urged.

"She, uh, had to leave early," he explained, rubbing the back of his neck with his palm at the memory of her silhouette disappearing down the alleyway, feeling the regret from that night coming alive in his stomach. "I spent an entire year trying to find her."

Alexis's face fell.

"But you never did?"

"No," he sighed, reaching across the counter to pat her frowning cheek. "I never learned her last name or if she even lived in New York, all I had was a first name and now I can't even recall that."

Alexis plopped back in her seat looking utterly disappointed, yet slightly optimistic despite the odds he had just listed against ever meeting this woman again.

"I hope you find her one day, Dad."

His memory of the woman he had just described to his daughter was hazy, but there were still pieces of that night that he remembered clearly, fragments that still made his body come alive with heat.

He chuckled. "I wouldn't mind if I did."

"So divorce Gina and go find the love of your life," she announced with a dramatic wave of her hand that was far too similar to a gesture he saw his mother use all too often.

"It wouldn't bother you if Gina and I weren't married anymore?" he asked, casually attempting to steer them back towards the real purpose of this entire series of conversations about love and _magic_.

Alexis looked up at him, meeting his eyes. "I just want you to be happy."

Rick moved around the counter separating them, wrapped his arms around his not so little girl, and hugged her tight.

"As long as I have you, Alexis, I'll always be happy."

* * *

When Kate returned home to her shabby New York apartment after her meeting with Gina Cowell, she dumped the contents of the larger manila envelope onto the stained wood of her dining room table and took a seat in one of the mismatched chairs. Her place in Harlem wasn't ideal, definitely on the low side of her budget, but it was a place where she could lie low and undetected while on the job, and privacy was a requirement she would not sacrifice if she was to continue leading this lifestyle.

She spread the contents out neatly on the flat surface, arranging Richard Castle's contact information, the addresses to the properties he owned - including the loft he called home in SoHo - and the travel arrangements for LA in organized sections like she always did. She placed his picture in the center of the categorized array, but picked it up a moment later and held it close to her eyes in scrutiny, confused by the strange flash of familiarity it elicited. It was a photo from one of his book jackets she was sure. She had never read the man's work, but his face…

Memories she had repressed for so long now suddenly flooded back. A nightclub, the dancing, the alley-

Kate dropped the photo and shoved away from the table, paced across the expanse of her living room and dropped her forehead against the wood of one of the boarded up windows. She closed her eyes, cringed when she saw the image of his face plastered across the backs of her eyelids.

"Fuck," she whispered to the empty apartment.

She shook her head, shook off the minor flurries of panic, and returned to the table with resolution burning in her blood. The fact that she had met him once changed nothing. This assignment would be no different than the others.

Kate went back to work at planning, going over the information Gina had provided her with and researching as much as she could on the author on her secure laptop. She stayed awake for hours learning this man, reading every newspaper article and journal entry, watching every video interview and footage from the red carpet of his last book launch party.

Her eyebrows rose at the very public reveal of a messy divorce with his first wife, even threatened to reach her hairline when she hacked into the Twelfth Precinct's server for good measure and found that he had a record.

A smirk crawled across her lips as she read of his encounter with a police horse a few years ago. It said in the report that Mr. Castle had apparently been nude at the time and somehow, she wasn't surprised.

Kate closed her laptop when sunlight began to stream through the cracks in the wooden boards. Richard Castle came across as just another arrogant, self-centered jackass to the media. And she found herself disappointed by it, by this less than appealing, alternate version of a man she had met over half a decade ago.

She knew she should sleep, she had a meeting with her 'employer' at noon, but her mind was still buzzing as she entered her bedroom. She had a few days before she would leave for LA, but she started packing to keep her mind occupied.

The fact that she had met him once changed nothing.

She scraped a hand through her hair as she tugged her duffle bag down from the top shelf of her closet, cursing when it fell from her grip and dislodged the shelf holding her modest collection of shoes, spilling stilettos across the floor. When she reached for a pair of her heels, she realized her hands were shaking.

Kate lowered to her knees in the tiny closet, balled her hands into fists at her thighs.

It changed everything.


	3. Chapter 3

The Ritz-Carlton hotel in Los Angeles was ridiculously expensive and incredibly out of her element. Beckett's mouth had fallen open when the cab had dropped her at the monstrosity of a building and she'd had to look at the hotel address Gina had given her twice just to make sure she had been taken to the right place. Then again, where else would Richard Castle stay but the most dazzling hotel in the city?

She was checked in under the alias of Lola Black, her newest false identity, and was then escorted to a glamorous room that caused her eyes to bulge in their sockets. Kate had never taken on a high profile target, definitely no one of a celebrity status, and she wasn't used to such luxuries. Being thrust into a world of them had temporarily knocked her off balance.

She wanted to be done with this assignment as soon as possible, but she was grateful she had been given the opportunity to fly out twelve hours before Richard Castle so she could have the chance to settle into this obscure lifestyle. It also gave her the vital opportunity to explore and learn her surroundings.

Once she was able to get past the slight awe of extravagancies, to abandon the astonishment that the shining Los Angeles sun had blinded her with and think like the trained professional she was, she took her time learning the hotel from top to bottom, visiting every guest accommodation – the gym, the club lounge, the spa, the pool – and memorizing the easiest path to each accessible exit. Gina had spoken to her when she had arrived that morning, informed her that Mr. Castle would _conveniently_ be staying in the room right across the hall from hers and that his schedule would be completely clear after a morning book signing on Saturday. That gave her nearly two full days to get this done.

She intended to have it finished in half the time.

Kate arranged her meager assortment of clothes neatly in the full closet her suite offered, the space more than twice the size of her own closet back in her Harlem apartment, and sighed quietly in the silence of her room as she drifted her fingers over the few items she had brought with her for the assignment. She wouldn't need much, the trip was only for the weekend, but she had failed to find a proper dress befitting of this mission in her own closet and hadn't had the time for an impromptu shopping trip.

If she had, maybe she would have called Lanie Parish. For old time's sake.

Kate smiled sadly. They used to have such a fun time trying on clothes, sometimes going into designer boutiques they knew they could never afford a single item from, but pretending as though they could and spending hours twirling around the dressing rooms in high-priced dresses and shoes at Lanie's insistence.

It was a brief period of her life when she had allowed herself to smile every once in a while, back when she was Detective Beckett and she could still let a few people see the softer side of herself. These days, _soft _was weak and in her line of work, and the weak died quick.

She abandoned the walk-in closet and returned to the bedroom, snatched her purse from where it rested on the satin duvet. She needed a dress, an outstanding dress that would garner the attention of a certain best-selling author.

Kate bit her lip and fingered the envelope of money tucked away safely at the bottom of her purse. Technically, she wasn't supposed to spend any of it, unless in case of emergency, but this _could_ be considered emergency. Her mission may even depend on her finding the perfect dress.

She justified her reasoning with a firm nod and slung the purse over her shoulder, felt for her room key still inside the front pocket of her jeans, and strode for the front door. She had some time to kill before Mr. Castle's flight would land. She was going shopping.

* * *

Travelling always made him tired. The hustle and bustle of the airport, the minor but occasional run-ins with paparazzi, the check-in process at whatever hotel Gina had booked him into. The time change was his worst enemy though, stealing three hours from him, and by the time he was finally swiping his keycard through the slot at his suite door, he was ready for bed.

Just as he was prepared to change into his pajamas though, his cellphone rang. The ominous sound of the _Imperial Death March_ theme echoed through the empty executive suite and Rick pressed his fingers hard against his eyelids until the resulting whiteness was blinding.

"Yes, Gina?" he grumbled into the device, attempting to shimmy out of his jeans while he spoke with his soon to be ex wife.

"Happy to hear you made it safe and sound, honey," Gina replied, her voice dripping in sarcasm over the endearment, the venom twining slick and steady around her words. It's become an all too familiar greeting when it comes to his spouse these days.

"I don't want to do this tonight," Rick sighed, sitting down on the bed and hooking his finger in the ankle of his sock, tugging each one from his feet and slinging them towards his open suitcase. "I'm exhausted and I have to be up early tomorrow."

"Poor baby," she sneered, and he braced himself, ready for more unwelcome verbal sparring, but when Gina remained silent on the other line he selfishly hoped the connection had died. "Richard?"

No such luck.

"Yes?" he answered with undisguised impatience, smoothing his hand over his jaw, feeling the stubble prick his fingers. He would shave in the morning, or maybe he wouldn't shave at all, go for that ruggedly handsome look instead. Yeah, the fans seemed to like that.

"Do you want this to work? Us?" she asked, quiet and surprising, and Rick paused, torn between groaning that she was deciding to have this conversation _now _and attempting to feel empathy for his wife, to understand her side of this disastrous marriage they had tied - knotted - themselves into.

"Gina, you know I care about you, I do, but it's just…" Castle scratched at the back of his neck. "Are you happy? Because I'm not."

The sweat gathered along the skin of his lower back when he received nothing but silence from the other line, but it didn't last long, and any kind of hope for a sincere conversation dissipated when she spoke again.

"That's what I thought. Have fun at your signing," she snapped before ending the call.

Castle sighed, felt the guilt hovering like a storm cloud at his shoulder, threatening to seep into his skin. Gina was not the type to show she was hurt, but he knew what he'd said had wounded her, that she had been wounded for months now because of him. Most days they were civil, content even, but Alexis had been right the other day during their conversation about love. Gina elicited no magic in his heart. Not to mention being married to his publisher was like having his own personal slave driver at times.

Gina had never understood his writing process, she had never cared to as long as he delivered his work on a deadline, but if he fell even a day behind she began lurking in the doorway of his office, pressuring him with expectant glares and subtle quips of impatience that only made him wish to abandon his laptop completely.

Castle placed his phone face down on the nightstand, changed into a clean t-shirt, and crawled under the wonderfully soft sheets. He should have dropped into sleep right then, as soon as his head hit the perfectly fluffed pillows, but his mind was running wild with thoughts of divorce now, thoughts of Alexis and how she would feel to have a father with two failed marriages under his belt.

Perhaps, not everyone was meant to find someone and live happily ever after for more than a few months. He feared that he was one of the unfortunate.

* * *

Kate frowned as she watched Richard Castle restlessly toss and turn in the dark before finally lying flat on his back and staring up at the ceiling. He had looked miserable after his conversation with Gina and although sympathy was not allowed, she felt it flaring strong for him.

Only an hour before he had arrived, Kate had conned her way into his room, convincing an older maid making rounds that she had been locked out of Castle's suite by accident. The woman had fallen for the simple lie with ease, letting Kate into his room with an understanding smile. It had taken her fifteen minutes to install the cameras - one in the decorative arrangement of flowers in the living area, the other inside the lamp on the nightstand - and set up the bug that would feed her the audio just in case the cameras were ever compromised.

She hated this part of the job, the outrageous invasion of privacy that made her feel despicable, but there was a perverse part of her that had been intrigued this time. Now though, watching him lie awake despite the obvious exhaustion that came through even on the screen of her laptop, she had the strange urge to comfort him, to warn him.

She slammed the laptop closed with too much force, tucked it under the pillow on the opposite side of the king sized bed and turned off the bedside lamp.

She copied the position she had just witnessed him take on, lying flat on her back, staring at the decorative ceiling in the darkness. This was getting ridiculous.

She didn't know him and she definitely didn't care about him.

Just another job, that's all Richard Castle would ever be. Maybe if she repeated it enough, she would actually believe it.


	4. Chapter 4

Kate waited until she heard the front entrance door to his suite click open, checked through the peephole to be sure and caught a glimpse of his broad shoulders just before he disappeared down the hall. At the confirmation, she strode into the bathroom and changed into the swimsuit she had brought from home, timing an extra fifteen minutes on her father's watch. Once she was dressed, she stepped out of her own room and took the elevator to the rooftop of the twenty-six-floor hotel.

Gina had given her many tips and tidbits about how he tended to spend his days when in LA, his habits and routines, and she distinctly remembered the woman telling her how he enjoyed laying out by the pool in the mornings. Not swimming, but relaxing under the golden sun. And sure enough, as soon as she stepped out onto the sleek grey tiling of the rooftop, she spotted Richard Castle lounging under a cabana across the expanse of the roof. In perfect view of the pool.

He had just returned from his book signing a little less than an hour ago and she could tell by the slumped shape of his body that he was glad to be done with his responsibilities for the day. She had monitored his departure that morning, followed the town car he had rented through the twenty-minute drive to the Barnes and Noble at the Grove near Central LA. The signing had lasted for nearly three hours and Kate had remained at the back of the store for the entirety of the event, deciding to settle down with her target's current best seller while she waited.

She had managed to finish the novel before he lifted from his seat and waved goodbye to his stream of admirers.

Castle had smiled, flirted, and been an absolute delight to his fans throughout the entirety of the morning, but once he was being escorted back to his car by early afternoon, he had stopped trying to hide the look of exhaustion, the dark circles beneath his eyes prominent in the sunlight and the frown lines bracketing his mouth carved deep into his skin. It didn't surprise her, considering when she had woken that morning and checked the video feed on her laptop, she had found him already awake. That had been at six a.m.

She wondered if he had slept at all.

He'd picked up lunch from a small café on Wilshire Boulevard on the way back to the hotel, spending only half an hour in his room – eating, she assumed – and then he was off to enjoy the luxuries of the lavish hotel, just as Gina had predicted.

Kate shed the white, crocheted cover-up she had thrown on over her swimsuit, handed it to the attending pool boy who offered to hang it in the nearby changing room for her. She felt a handful of men ogling her, an audience in the row of cushioned lounge chairs lining the pool's side watching her every move, as she strode towards the deeper end of the pool in nothing but a very tiny, strikingly red string bikini, but she purposely waited until she knew she had caught his eye as well to dive into the shimmering blue water.

Kate had always found swimming to be a relaxing past time, one she rarely indulged in anymore, and spent a few seconds underwater gliding close to the bottom, skimming her fingertips across the white and teal tiled flooring before propelling up to the surface for air. She went a few laps in the rectangular enclosure before curling her fingers around the gleaming, sun warmed railing at the shallow end and finding her footing on the slick stairs beneath the water.

She took her time climbing the three steps, swaying her hips as her body rose from the water, sensually smoothing her hands up her sides as she reached for the towel the pool attendant had ready for her.

She didn't meet Castle's eyes until she was on dry land, and she wasn't disappointed by his slack jawed reaction. He had been front and center for the little show she had just put on and she shot him a flirty smile, a flash of her bedroom eyes, as she sauntered away from him, towards the vacant cabana positioned on the opposite end of the rooftop.

She caught him already rising from his seat in the corner of her eye before she was even halfway to her destination.

Kate feigned obliviousness, smoothed the towel over her skin and placed it beneath her before she sat down on the cushioned, two-person chaise lounge under the billowing white curtains surrounding expensive outdoor furniture. She closed her eyes while she anticipated Castle's arrival, but she didn't have to wait long, and she pretended not to notice when he made his way to her only minutes later.

She arched her back in a feline-like stretch, felt her breasts strain against the confines of the cherry red bikini top, and repressed a grin at the audible intake of breath beside her, peeled her eyes open to glance in the direction of the uninhibited sound.

"You sure know how to make an entrance," he commented, his voice like velvet as he settled on the edge of the furniture only inches from her hip, but she merely smirked, extended one of her inclined legs to stretch across the length of cushioning. His eyes followed, as if mesmerized, and maybe Gina had been right.

It would be all too easy to seduce this man and she was forced to tamper down the unwelcome disappointment.

"Are you staying? At - at the hotel, I mean."

"I am," she nodded, keeping the lazy smile in place as she watched him fumble over his words and wasn't he supposed to be a best-selling author?

"So am I," he said with a crooked grin that made his eyes shine, and she felt her heart flutter in rebellion at the devilish lift of his lips, the cerulean of his irises that rivaled the striking color of the pool water. She wouldn't deny he was a good looking man and that the sight of him in a well-fitting t-shirt that portrayed a hint of the muscles underneath had a slither of heat coiling low in her abdomen. She could acknowledge these things, as long as she refrained from acting on them. Which she would. "Are you here for business or pleasure?"

His eyes flashed at the latter, a dangerous spark of blue at the way his lips caressed the word with purposeful care, and she pressed her tongue to her teeth as her eyes flickered down to his mouth and back to his gaze again.

"Maybe a bit of both."

Castle leaned in closer to her, just slightly, casting a shadow over her bared stomach. She didn't stop him when he brushed a tentative touch of his knuckles along her still bent knee, tracing only his index finger over the bone of her kneecap. But with his touch came a zap of electricity she hadn't been expecting and she subtly knocked his teasing finger away.

"What's your name?" he asked, his voice a low husk that sent a gentle shiver through her bones, and she watched his throat bob as he swallowed hard, collected himself.

She pushed up on her elbows, felt the cool drip of water from her hair evoke a trail of goosebumps down her spine when it trickled over her warm skin, and swung her knees over the side of the lounge chair, deliberately bumping her limbs against his.

He cocked an eyebrow at her, intrigue and lust flaring bright in his irises, and Kate slid a hand onto his jean-clad thigh as she stood between his knees and bent to position her cheek next to his, just an breath from touching.

Her hair stained the shoulder of his shirt when she whispered in his ear, "Meet me at the Dragonfly tonight and maybe you'll find out."

She was drifting back towards the elevators with a self-satisfied grin spread across her lips before he could respond.

* * *

Technically, Castle and Gina were separated. She had moved out of the loft earlier in the week after that vicious fight in Le Cirque, and he hadn't seen her since, only received the bitter phone calls and passive aggressive text messages. But he was still hesitant to see another woman before divorce papers were drawn up.

Despite the lack of excitement and the increase in animosity during their marriage, Castle had never cheated on his wife. He had never cheated on anyone, couldn't even stand the thought of it, especially after he had been on the opposite side of things with Meredith. But after his encounter with the woman in the sinfully small, red bikini, he wasn't sure how true to his morals he would remain tonight.

Because he was definitely meeting her at the Dragonfly nightclub later.

She had lured him in like a pro with that routine in the pool - swimming through the gleaming water with grace and rising before him like a goddess, calling to him with the siren song of her body. He wasn't sure if she had known who he was, recognized his identity as an author that usually had most women fawning over him, or if she had merely decided he was her type that day, but she had known he would be unable to resist her and she had been right.

He gained attention from other women all the time, but he rarely ever offered any genuine interest in return. No spark had been ignited between him and another person for a very long time. Until now.

Now all he could think about was the mystery woman and the way that bikini had clung to her skin. How her eyes had danced in a mixture of amber and green with flaring specks of gold and how her flesh had felt like fire under his touch, even if only for just a moment.

Yeah, he couldn't wait to see her again.


	5. Chapter 5

Kate hadn't expected him to remember her. She looked extremely different from the last time they had met, back when she was barely twenty-one and so deep in her grief that she could barely keep her head above water. He had given her a fake name, _Alexander_, but she had given him the truth of hers.

She couldn't remember why exactly she had decided to trust him, to flirt back and allow him to draw her away from the bar and onto the dance floor when every other man who had made the same attempt had only received a scowl in response. He had felt different and she had been tired, tired of feeling empty and sad and broken. And Richard Castle had helped her forget.

* * *

_She had only come out tonight at Maddie's insistence. Her old best friend was in town and had begged her to accompany her for the evening, but despite Maddie's good intentions, her friend was oblivious to just how hard it was to leave her own apartment, and Maddie had quickly abandoned Kate at the bar for an attractive man across the chaotic night club. _

_Kate didn't fault her for it. At least one of them should have fun tonight. _

_She contemplated getting drunk, drinking until she could hardly stand like her father did every night and forgetting about all of it for just a little while. How wonderful it would be to forget, to breathe without feeling that permanent ache in her chest, so she ordered the first type of alcohol she could think of and buried her hands in her long, dark hair. _

_Tonight was supposed to be fun. She had curled her hair and worn her favorite pair of heels with a little black dress that she knew accentuated her curves - despite the fact that she had lost so much weight she barely had any left - trying to recapture a confidence she used to own so effortlessly. She told herself she would at least _try_ to enjoy herself, that her mother would _want_ her to enjoy her life, but sorrow had become a constant companion for Kate and that night was no different from the rest. It didn't matter what she did, she still felt numb. And alone. _

_It wasn't so horrible anymore, though; she was starting to accept the dull ache of grief that had taken a long lasting residence in her heart as normalcy._

_She downed the shot placed in front of her before she could find a reason not to, forced her face to remain neutral as the vodka burned down her throat and spread like flames through her chilled limbs._

_She pursed her lips when she felt someone take the seat next to her, not in the mood for small talk or flirting tonight, not in the mood for communication at all, but the man didn't speak or show her any acknowledgement, only ordered some whiskey with a name she didn't recognize. And then another shot of vodka was slid over to her._

_Kate glanced at the stranger next to her from the corner of her eye, taking in his profile through the curtain of hair shielding her face. He was definitely good looking, she didn't have to face him head on to see that. _

_"__Thanks," she muttered, gingerly reaching for the shot glass and tipping it back, taking it again in one swallow._

_"__Not a problem, looked like you could use it." He shrugged his shoulders, flippant, but his voice was kind, understanding even, and she arched an eyebrow at the response._

_"__That bad, huh?"_

_He smirked. "No, just look like you've had a long day."_

_"__Mm, you could say that," she murmured, ready to raise her hand for another round, but the stranger stopped her, invading her line of vision with a tumbler of amber colored liquid._

_"__Try this," he said softly, holding the glass out to her in offering, and finally she turned to look at him. _

_She wished she hadn't. _

_He was beautiful for a man, older than most of the guys she dated but in an appealing way, with electric blue eyes that were subtly dulled and a well-defined jawline peppered with scruff that she instantly wanted to put her mouth to. His body wasn't bad either. The purple button down shirt he had on looked expensive despite the worn and wrinkled state it was in, but it still clung to him well, revealing a lean figure and a noticeably broad chest that she could already envision pressing herself up against. _

_Kate bit her lip in hesitation; considering she hadn't felt anything close to arousal since, well, January of last year, it was almost foreign to feel a subtle spark of heat swirl in her abdomen. But maybe... maybe she could like this stranger._

_"__Trust me, it's better than vodka," he added and she realized she'd been staring for too long._

_Kate carefully took the glass from him, working to keep her fingers a safe distance from his, and then touched her lips to the same place his had been._

_The whiskey was stronger than she was used to, richer and probably more expensive than she could ever afford, but good, and she hummed as it slid down her throat._

_"__You're right," she nodded, setting the glass back on the sticky, wooden countertop. _

_"__Alexander," he introduced himself, quietly, as if he thought he would spook her, but she provided him with a timid lift of her lips._

_"__Kate," she replied. _

_"__Kate," he echoed, like he was testing it out for himself, tasting it on his tongue, and she hated that her name in his mouth sent a stupid shiver down her spine. _

_"__So, you come here often?" _

_She snorted and he smiled._

_"__No, you?"_

_"__Oh yeah, total party animal if you can't tell."_

_She snickered and stood up, reaching for his shoulders when she unexpectedly stumbled. He caught her by the waist, his thumbs landing in the hollows of her hipbones, and she hummed to herself, not even concerned with the part of her that tried to warn her this was a bad idea._

_Kate took a step back, slipped her hands down his arms until her fingers snagged in his. She grinned at him as he watched her hands tangle with his before glancing up at her with an arched eyebrow._

_"__Dance with me," she murmured while she drew him away from the bar with no effort at all._

_She wasn't drunk, but her blood was definitely singing with a pleasant buzz from the alcohol as he followed her onto the overcrowded dance floor. The music was fast, pounding and vibrating through her bones, but all she could actually feel was the touch of his fingers on the bare skin her dress failed to cover and the heat of his body searing against hers through their clothes. _

_So maybe that buzz she felt wasn't just from the alcohol. But it was wonderful and invigorating and everything she hadn't felt in too long and she was so far from ready to give it up._

_"__Can we get out of here?" she asked after a few songs, before she could stop herself, and almost raised a hand to her mouth, wanting to capture the words midair and shove them back inside. _

_"__Of course," he said, his voice kind, but his eyes had darkened from cerulean to indigo and the arousal was back, swarming her insides like wildfire. _

_She knew she should back out now, thank him for the drink and the dance and tell him she had to head home, but she continued to lead him through the maze of grinding bodies, towards the exit at the back of the club, her palms sweating and her stomach coiling tightly with anticipation. _

_She didn't want to go home, she wanted this. She wanted_ him_. And she couldn't remember the last time she had allowed herself the pleasure of something she truly wanted, so what did it matter if she was selfish for one night? She deserved it. _

_She finally kissed him once they were free of the crowded club and encompassed by the cool night air, backed him up against the wall and took from his mouth until he was filling her senses, twining through her veins and clouding her mind better than the alcohol. He tasted of the expensive whiskey they'd shared, of coffee and mint and something spicy she couldn't distinguish but wanted more of. _

_"__Hotel?" he asked her, his hands skirting the edges of the dress at her upper thighs, but she shook her head. If they took too long, her mind would change and she didn't want that. She wanted him now, quick and dirty in an alley._

_He didn't question her, only lifted her in his arms and pressed her against the cool brick of the wall. She arched her spine at the intimate press of him between her thighs as she wrapped her legs securely around his waist, a pool of liquid fire dousing her insides and making her hips buck. He touched his mouth to every part of her he could reach – neck, shoulder, collarbones, the swell of her breasts. She wanted his mouth on every inch of her skin, but she was too impatient and reached between them, freed him from his pants. _

_When he moved within her, for the first time in nearly two years, she felt a flurry of liveliness flutter inside her. Flares of actual feeling breaking apart the sheets of icy numbness and lighting up her insides with sparks of electricity. _

_He was a sense of safety she had been lacking; he was tender adoration she had never felt and unfamiliar, unadulterated adrenaline like lightening in her veins that she had always craved. He was just what she had needed. _

_"__Alex," she whispered his name for the first time, dusting her lips over his cheek with reverence she had never felt for anyone else, savoring it for just a moment and thanking him at the same time._

_It hadn't taken long to find release. Their lips working with fervor, their bodies gliding together in an effortless rhythm she had never experienced with another person, and she shattered in his arms after only a few deep, long strokes with a sob muffled against his throat. He allowed them both a moment of recovery, supporting her with the trembling wall of his body until she rolled her shoulders and untangled her legs from his hips._

_"__Kate."_

_She was attempting to adjust her dress when she looked up to see him staring at her with something she refused to identify as longing._

_"Let me take you to dinner."_

_She smiled gently, but lowered her eyes._

_"__I don't think that's a good idea."_

_He touched her cheek, brushed her hair behind her ear and fixed the shoulder of her dress when it slipped down her arm._

_"You deserve more than this. More than a quick round in a back alley."_

_"You don't know what I deserve," she muttered, but he gave her bicep a gentle squeeze.  
_

_"I could."_

_Kate reached up, cradled his jaw in her palm and smudged one more kiss to his mouth, let him taste the sadness on her tongue and the hint of gratitude spilling onto her lips._

_"__It was nice to meet you, Alexander."_

_He nodded at the rejection and she was thankful for the understanding response, for the lack of pushing._

_"__It's too bad, it would have been great," he mused before she could abandon him in the alleyway. _

_Kate smiled, bit her lip. "It already was."_

_She didn't look back as she made her way to the street, but she felt the burn of his eyes on her even once she was safely inside a cab on her way back to her apartment._

* * *

Beckett splashed some water on her face to clear her mind of old memories that meant nothing. He had said back then that she deserved more, implied that what they had done had meant more, to him at least, but it was just as he had said – a quick fuck in an alley. Nothing more, nothing less, and it was for the best.

If he were to remember her, it would ruin everything.

Kate shed the fluffy, white towel she had wrapped around her body after her shower and slipped into the silk cocktail dress she had bought the day before her encounter with Richard Castle. It had been out of her price range, but it was tasteful and classy and just a tad slutty, and it made her feel sexy. Besides, what other chance would she have to buy something nice for herself in Beverly Hills?

Focusing intently on the dark glide of her eyeliner and the smoky smudge of shadow coating her eyelids, she finished applying the otherwise light coat of makeup, styled her hair in tousled curls, stepped into the black stilettos she had brought from home, and sprayed a single spritz of her favorite perfume to her neck.

She completed the look with a single stroke of shimmering gloss across her bottom lip, pressing her lips together to spread the product. Taking a step back, she examined herself in the mirror – the dark appeal of the makeup, the form fitting dress with the teasing cut out in the back, the tanned length of her legs in the five-inch heels.

Just like before, Castle would be unable to resist.


	6. Chapter 6

For a moment, when hands skimmed along her sides as she stood alone at the bar, her spine straightened and she prepared to thrust her elbow back into the handsy creep behind her. But when she looked down, saw the thick fingers spreading tentatively along her hips, one with a barely noticeable tan line on the fourth of his left hand, she relaxed.

"Mr. Castle," she purred, turning her head to see him hovering at her back, apprehensive to go much further with his touch. It led her to believe he was less the playboy image he had projected for the world to see, and more the gentleman she had met nearly seven years ago. The realization had warmth unfurling low in her stomach.

"So you do know who I am," he grinned, eager arousal and an odd spark of delight swimming in his eyes. "A fan, perhaps?"

She laughed, took a meager sip of her drink before stealing one of his hands from her waist and twirling around to see him. His eyes flickered down her body, appreciating the full view of her in the vintage Versace dress, and Kate stepped in closer, regained the attention of his wandering eyes.

"In your dreams."

"You are welcome in my dreams every night," he returned with ease and she bit her lip, saw the action made his pupils dilate.

She tugged on the hand clasped loosely with hers, led his willing body into the sea of dancers.

"I think you should dance with me."

He smirked, stayed close as she led him out to the middle of the floor. "Whatever you want."

Talking over the booming pulse of the music wasn't ideal, but he managed to make it work, keeping his lips near her ear.

"So what's your name, beautiful?"

Kate rolled her eyes, but allowed an indulgent grin to stretch across her lips as she draped her arms along his shoulders, encouraged him to move with her to the thrum of the electronic beat.

"You can call me Lola."

He scoffed, shaking his head at her as if disappointed. "That's not your name."

She cocked an eyebrow at him, pressing closer so that her chest brushed against his. "It's not?"

He blinked, but shook his head again, curled his fingers over the bones of her hips, holding to her as she swayed with the rhythm before allowing his hands to drift further down, splay possessively across the small of her back. His palms burned through the silk of her dress and she fought the urge to cant forward, drive her lower body into his.

"It's not."

"So?"

He surprised her when he jerked her forward, not rough, but unexpectedly quick, and her eyes darted to his lips before she could stop them, watched the way they moved when he spoke.

"If the night ends the way I think we both intend for it to, I'm going to want to know whose name I'm whispering in the dark."

A shiver of unadulterated need clambered up her spine and she spun around to hide it, fit her back to his chest instead and grinded into the cradle of his hips. His breathing stuttered but he swiftly recovered, planting his hands at her waist, gliding the tips of his fingers over her abdomen.

Her arms laced around his neck and she turned her head, caught his ear between her teeth in an impulsive moment before murmuring in his ear, "If the night _happens_ to end that way, Mr. Castle, you won't be able to speak, let alone say my name."

One of his hands slithered up her ribs, thumb skimming the underside of her breast, and she arched in surprise, her body rising to meet the warmth of his palm.

"Quite confident there, _Lola_."

She knocked his hand away and grasped it painfully tight in her own, kept it glued to her waist, not willing to allow him to any more free-range exploration. This was _her_ game and he was not about to throw her off with a few intimate sweeps of his fingers.

But then his lips skated down the slope of her neck and her head fell back to his shoulder, inadvertently offering him invitation to press his open mouth to her throat. A low moan escaped her lips as he sucked hard enough to bruise, laving his tongue over the throb of her pulse.

Her fingers tangled in his hair when he used his teeth to nip at the straining tendons of her neck, teasing before taking a moment to soothe the skin with his scalding tongue, and then he was spinning her around.

She gasped before she smothered the sound with a growl, silently reprimanding herself for allowing him even an ounce of control. She was not here to flirt or dance, especially not with him, not without purpose. But her breath still quickened when his hands traveled down to cup her ass, squeezing gently.

Part of her wanted this, had been yearning for it since she had laid eyes on him for the first time in over half a decade. She knew all too well how good his touch could be, how good _they_ could be together and she couldn't control the electric current between them; she wasn't willing to try, not anymore.

She caught his face between her hands and tugged him down by his ears, claimed his mouth in a savage kiss that made him groan. Castle hauled her closer, drew the knee she had already curled at his thigh even higher and - _shit,_ it was like she was that young, desperate girl all over again. She couldn't stop her body, her mouth, and he was _not_ helping - one hand encouraging the treacherous roll of her hips while the other snaked around her neck, thumb tracing the underside of her jaw.

It was wrong, it was so wrong, but she sucked his tongue into her mouth and dug her nails into the muscles of his back and she didn't care. She would just – she'd get him out of her system, that's it. She would allow herself the night, just one night, and it'd be fine.

"Take me out of here," she husked, clenching her fingers around the waist of his jeans, scoring her nails into the leather of his belt.

"Really?" he panted, tightening his grip on her as if she would take the words back and elude his touch at any moment.

She nodded briskly and grabbed at one of his hands, clasped it tight in her own and began leading him towards the nearest exit, ignoring the intense wave of déjà vu rolling over her.

* * *

Her hands wandered without mercy during the cab ride, fingers trailing too high up his leg and toying cruelly with his belt buckle. Her open mouth trailed down his throat to his collarbone, nudging the fabric of his partially unbuttoned shirt to the side and tracing her tongue along the sharp path of bone. He responded to her advances with fervor, brushing a hand up the back of her thigh, thumb skirting under the hem of her dress, and pulling her tight against his side, eventually forcing her chin upwards and sealing his lips over hers once more.

She groaned, craving more, always more, and tried to remember the plan as his tongue stroked hotly against hers. She couldn't forget the mission, the true reason for their reunion, but her body was having a hard time staying in control, undulating against his, inching closer and ignoring the muffled voice in her head telling her to _slow down. _

Castle swallowed the embarrassing, breathless noises she was unable to hold back and she knew she should feel mortified that they were most likely giving their driver one hell of a show, but all of her energy was currently focused on not swinging a leg over his lap and riding him until she could feel nothing except the white-hot bliss of release.

The taxi came to a stop without her realization and it was Castle who broke away from her, panting in short, sharp bursts as he withdrew a few bills from his back pocket and handed them to the red-faced cabbie before shoving the door open and tugging her out with him.

The elevator was worse.

The walk through the ritzy lobby was nothing more than a glamorous blur until they reached the elegant lift, where she was instantly pressing him into one of the gleaming gold panels the moment the doors slid closed. She was all over him then, touching everywhere her fingers could find - in his hair, under his shirt, palming his ass. She hissed and nipped at his lower lip when his leg slid between her thighs and gave her the friction she'd so desperately desired.

Her hand tripped down his chest, undoing a few more buttons of his shirt in the process, and lingered momentarily at his belt before going lower and cupping him through his pants.

He jerked and tightened the arms banded around her body.

"Don't," he choked and she hummed in satisfaction at the sound of desperation, squeezed the bulge in his jeans once more before the elevator dinged its arrival on his floor.

She forced herself to refrain from touching him, aside from the link of their hands, while they walked the long hallway to his room. She may be allowing herself to break a few rules tonight, but if she didn't get a grip she was going to jump him in the hall, and she knew she'd be pretty ashamed of _that_ in the morning.

But once he managed to slide his keycard through the slot and get the door open, she crowded his back, molding herself against his frame and raking her nails up and down the front of his upper body. She gasped when he spun around and pushed her back up against the door once they were finally inside, lifting her hands above her head and effectively pinning her there as his mouth returned to hers.

"Please, Alex," she moaned, twining a leg around his thigh and dragging him closer until she could rock her pelvis hard into his.

But he wasn't moving, his lips paused against her chin and her eyes fluttered open to see his brow was furrowed.

"You…" He looked up at her in confusion, stared at her for a long moment, and then his eyes flashed with startling clarity and she realized she had to get out of there. Now.

"Let me go."

"Kate," he breathed her name. "You're - I can't believe I didn't-"

"Don't, don't," she pleaded, craning her neck, desperately trying to cover his mouth, to stop him from saying it.

"I looked for you," he murmured, holding himself out of her reach, but releasing her wrists in favor of brushing his fingers over her cheek, as if he was seeing her again for the first time. "I know it wasn't - but I had hoped…"

"Castle, please," she sighed, using her freed hand to collect his from her face and holding it between them, hoping that somehow the revelation of her true identity wouldn't change the course of their evening. She didn't want to remember the past, she didn't want to remember at all, she just wanted to _forget. _"Please, don't make it personal."

His eyes darkened at that and he swept in fast and hard, laid a brutal kiss upon her lips that had her head thumping back against the door.

"Too late," he mumbled into her mouth, but she merely threaded her fingers through his hair and kissed him back.

She would still get the job done. She could still fix things. Just. This first. She just needed him first.

* * *

**A/N: The following chapter will be rated M. Please feel free to skip over it if you're uncomfortable with the content. T rating will return by chapter 8.**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Friendly reminder that this chapter is rated M.**

* * *

Kate mewled and crashed her lips to his when he slipped a hand underneath her dress and between her legs, the heat of his fingertips burning through the lace of her underwear.

"Off," she growled, dropping her hands to his pants and clawing at his belt, her dexterous fingers having the buttons and zipper undone within seconds.

His pants fell around his ankles the same time the scrap of her underwear slipped to the floor. The skirt of her dress was rucked up around her waist and Kate used the freedom to hook her leg high around his thigh once again. Her hand slithered down to close around his length, the width of him filling her palm and making her swallow hard in anticipation and maybe a hint of apprehension. This would be her first time in a while and he had always qualified as the largest she'd ever had.

"Kate," he murmured through his teeth after a few seconds of her caressing him, memorizing the weight of him so heavy and thick in her hand, and oh, she liked the sound of her name grinding past his lips like that.

She guided him to her entrance, let him tease her for just a moment by stroking his tip through her folds, and then he slowly pushed into her, filling her inch by inch as if he knew her body would need the chance to adjust. As if he remembered.

A part of her found it sweet, but she didn't want sweet. Nothing about this was sweet. It was wrong, a mistake, and it needed to start feeling like one.

Once he was fully immersed in her body, she rocked forward, bit down on his shoulder to muffle the moan the movement elicited. She was balancing on the ball of her foot, gripping tightly to his back, when his hands came under her thighs and hoisted her body into his arms. She whimpered, resisting the urge to cry out, and dug her nails into his shoulder blades at the change in angle, the way he thrust deeper and how her body made a satisfying thump against the door.

"Feel familiar?" he mumbled against the bone of her cheek.

There was a hint of a smile curling at his lips and she turned her head, captured his mouth and bit down hard on his bottom lip so he would stop talking.

It was all hard and fast then, up against the door of his fancy hotel suite, and it was so good, so good she could have sworn she saw stars bursting behind her eyelids as she fell from the edge with him.

He had to hold her up for a few long moments afterwards, before she forced her feet to the ground and meandered her way through the living space and over to the luxurious king sized bed identical to hers across the hall. Across the hall was where she should have been going right now, but it had been an unspoken understanding between them that the night wasn't over and wouldn't end for a while, and he confirmed it for her when he followed her into the bedroom.

If she had been watching from her laptop, she would have a perfect view of the two of them as he unzipped her dress, taking his time dragging the zipper down her spine, touching each newly revealed piece of skin with his scalding fingertips. The thought caused her blood to simmer.

He toyed with the lace edges of her bra as he trailed his fingers around her ribs, stroking the heaving bones with reverence before migrating to her back to unhook the clasp. She shoved his hand out of the way once the straps slipped from her shoulders, removed the lingerie from her chest and tossed it towards the doorway so that she was standing completely naked in front of him while he remained almost fully clothed in his boxers and open dress shirt.

"Take your clothes off," she commanded, prepared to crawl onto the bed, but he grabbed her by the waist to still her, stealing her control, and then he was kneeling between her legs.

He shrugged his shirt from his shoulders and held her by the hips once he was finally naked from the waist up. He stared up at her as he released a purposeful exhale of heated breath onto her center, shooting arousal to her core and she was so achingly wet, she wondered if the evidence would begin to drip down her thighs.

A shiver traveled up from her toes, sending a noticeable tremble through her legs, and then his mouth was on her.

She gasped his name – his real name – and twined her fingers in his hair as his tongue slicked through her folds. She hadn't expected to be so responsive to him, especially after they'd just had sex against a door mere minutes ago, but he knew exactly how to touch her, as if he already had her learned and memorized.

He knew how fast, how hard, how much pressure - what she liked. She hated it, hated him, but she never wanted him to stop.

He devoted his tongue to her clit, swirling and sucking, causing keening noises to swell in her throat while his fingers teased at her entrance. She attempted to quell the building whimpers as he slid one inside her, then another, moving in and out, curling and coaxing her closer to release. Her nails scored at the back of his neck, but she didn't have the voice to apologize, didn't think he would accept it by the way his mouth worked her over with growing vigor.

The pleasure sizzled and overflowed, the ripple of her orgasm racing through her bloodstream, and he pulled away just before it became painful, stood up and caught her when she swayed.

Kate lifted on her toes when her limbs no longer trembled, caught his lips and moaned at the prominent taste of herself in his mouth. He guided her down to the bed, still kissing her with languid attentiveness, and she swept her nails up and down the smooth plains and valleys of his back, fingers lingering over the muscles that jumped at her touch.

He was hard against her thigh, his length hot and throbbing, ready once more, but he didn't draw attention to it, didn't rush her, and she wished he would, wished he was a jackass like he led the public to believe. It would make things so much easier.

"Kate."

She glanced up at him, realized her gaze had been following the path of her fingers. "Yeah?"

"You're - I'm glad you're here."

Her lips curled shyly. "Me too."

It was the worst possible thing to say, but in the dim lighting of his hotel room with his warm body atop hers, it was too easy to be honest.

"What if-"

She pushed gently on his chest, nudged him onto his back and rose on her knees to settle in a graceful straddle above him.

"We'll talk later, okay?"

She didn't mean it, but he believed her, and for the first time in awhile, she felt guilty for lying.

He wiped the guilt from her mind with his hands on her breasts, fingers sweeping over her erect nipples, causing her spine to bow. He smirked, proud of himself, and she undulated her hips, stealing the smirk away, forcing his eyes to slam shut instead.

She rocked over him until her arousal coated them both and Castle looked like he was about to combust.

"Kate," he growled, bruising fingers digging into her hipbones. "I need - you can't - you're going to kill me."

She chuckled, but shifted over him, sinking down, taking him back inside, and watching in something close to fascination at the parting of his lips, the roping tendons bulging in his neck, and the work of his jaw as he struggled to breathe through the engulfing heat of her. She wanted to take the time to map his body, to learn exactly how to drive him insane with her touch, but she leaned back instead, maneuvering her hands behind her and bracing them on his thighs, using the muscles of his legs for purchase.

The change in angle caused him to curse, thrust into her with less control, and she released a staggering breath at the abrupt stroke, let her head fall back and her eyes screw shut.

"Fuck." She listened to him grunt, suddenly feeling his hands on the expanding branches of her ribs, remaining there as her body worked over his. "You're gorgeous."

A whine caught in her throat as he sat up, bent his knees to support her back, and her hands slipped from his thighs, reached for his shoulders when he encouraged her forward into his lap. She buried her face in the slick curve of his neck as they rocked into one another, smothering the demeaning sounds of her soft cries in his sweat stained skin.

It was too intimate, too personal, and she attempted to shove him to his back once more. But he murmured something against her temple, dropped a kiss to her damp hair before he rolled them over. She groaned at the change, wondered if her body would eventually explode from all the differentiating movements and the heightened sensation of him moving inside her each time.

She was so painfully close now, teetering on the edge of explosion; his strokes were deep, powerful, and her inner muscles were contracting around him fiercely, but she needed more.

"Talk," she rasped, digging her nails into his shoulder and jerking hard into the bracket of his hips when he slid a hand under her back, splayed his palm over the base of her spine, and pressed her in tighter against him.

"What?" he forced out along her temple, his rhythm not faltering as he lifted his head to see her.

"Your - your voice. I like your voice. It makes it even - better," she confessed, unsure whether her cheeks were flushed from embarrassment or the titillating dance of their bodies.

"You're beautiful," he offered into the hollow of her throat, throwing words like coins in a wishing well, but she moaned, shook her head as his thrusts grew faster and the exquisite friction increased.

"Real words. Better words," she breathed around the ragged sob building in her chest.

He hauled her leg higher at his torso, positioned her knee so that it was near his shoulder and her toes were curling into his ribs, and drove impossibly deeper, hit her in just the right spot and she could feel the beginnings of her control unraveling.

"_Castle._"

"Extraordinary," he choked on the word. "Thought about you so many times - God, Kate - just wanted you so many times."

Her spine jolted and her body seized, the paralyzing wave of release washing over and leaving her to drown in a sea of euphoria Castle soon followed her into.

They lay liquidized, boneless and entwined together, the harsh rasps of their breathing and the wild pounds of their hearts the only sounds in the room. She relished it, closed her eyes to the warm weight of him sealed to her, the intimacy of sharing sweat and breath and heartbeats.

He was the first to speak.

"That was amazing."

She cracked an eye open to see him lifted on his elbows again, gazing down at her mystified.

She dusted her lips over the nearest stretch of skin she could reach, his forearm, and hummed loose and sated. "It was."

"But you look sad," he murmured a minute later, brushing her hair back from her face, and she was so exhausted, she nuzzled into his touch, let him pull her in close to his chest as he settled beside her.

"Just tired," she sighed, pressing her cheek over his clavicle, curling her fingers over his sternum, feeling his heartbeat keeping a steady throb under her touch.

She should get up, gather her clothes and make her exit before he could convince her otherwise, but he was warm and stroking gentle fingers through her hair and she couldn't fight the languorous calls of sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

"Don't sneak out," he slurred into his pillow when he noticed her sitting up in the bed, the smooth, naked wall of her back to him.

Kate looked over her shoulder, the sunlight from the adjacent window casting a glow around her face. She smiled, if he could call the sad curve of her lips a smile, but eased back down onto her side, curled her knees up close, looking more shy, more nervous, than he had ever seen her. He still couldn't believe he had failed to recognize her sooner. It had been seven years, and he had been slightly drunk, but he had always insisted that if he were to run into this woman again, he would recognize her without a second glance.

Apparently, he had been wrong.

He tried to reason that she did look quite different now – she was older, more confident and bolder in her presence, able to take command of a room without even knowing rather than hiding in the shadows where he had first found her. Her hair was lighter, closer to a shining chestnut rather than the darker brunette color she'd initially worn when he met her. It was shorter too, framing her face better, brushing her shoulders instead of streaming down her back. She appeared healthier as well, not so stick thin, nor silvery pale with those striking purple smudges underneath her eyes.

Otherwise, not much else had changed. She was still breathtaking and the darkness that had exuded from her all those years - the sadness and the mystery that had drawn him to her in the first place - still lingered.

She was watching him study her, waiting patiently for him to speak, but his hand rose towards her face instead. She attempted to dodge him, lifting away from his touch as if by reflex, as if the intimacy was just too much, but she caught his wrist before it could fall away. Offering him an apologetic curve of her lips, she guided his palm to her cheek, allowed his thumb to sweep over the delicate skin beneath the shimmering gold of her eye.

"Hey," he murmured, stupidly, but he was kind of mesmerized by her and the way her lips lifted upwards for him.

"Hey," she whispered back into the quiet stillness of the early morning, surprising him when she reached forward to sift her fingers through his hair. "I have to go, I have-"

His phone rang and he winced in apology before turning on his back to reach for the device.

"Just a second, it's my daughter," he told her, feeling the dread claw at his insides when her eyes widened. "Morning, Pumpkin. You do know it's three hours earlier where I am, don't you?"

A soft giggle erupted on the other line. "I do _know_, but I may have forgotten. I just called to warn you, Gina was at the loft this morning and she seemed really upset," his daughter informed him. He could hear the sounds of traffic in the background and assumed she was on her usual walk to school.

"Oh?" he murmured, glancing to Kate, who was watching him with anxious eyes and her bottom lip pulled between her teeth.

"Yeah, she stormed in while Gram and I were having breakfast, packed a bag from your room and then left. Didn't even say hi."

"Ah." Castle scrubbed at his eyes, the thought of the welcoming he would receive from Gina back in New York already plaguing him with fatigue. "It's nothing to worry about, honey. Gina and I just had a disagreement on the phone the other night so I figured she wasn't very happy with me. She probably just wanted to collect more of her things."

"Do you want us to change the locks?" Alexis queried in light concern.

"No, that's not necessary." But changing the locks actually wouldn't be such a bad idea. "I'll be back by tomorrow morning anyway. We'll work everything out then, okay?"

"Okay, Dad. I'm almost at school so I have to go, but are you having a good time in the city of angels?" she teased and Castle felt his lips quirk, trailed a finger down the wing of Kate's shoulder.

"Great time," he assured her and wondered if Kate knew how dark her eyes had suddenly become.

"Good," she chirped, sounding genuinely pleased with his answer. "Talk to you later, Dad. Love you!"

"Love you too, Alexis. Have a good day at school."

He ended the call, placed the phone back on his nightstand, but when he glanced back, Kate was practically on top of him.

"You have a daughter?"

He arched an eyebrow at her. He wouldn't hesitate to put a stop to… to whatever it was they were doing if Kate had a problem with him being a father. That was something he would never compromise on for anyone. "Is that a problem?"

"No," she said without hesitation, but she still seemed troubled by the fact. "I just - didn't know."

He frowned. "Does it change anything?"

She positioned her elbows on either side of his head while her body rose to cover his. Her eyes were mournful as she stared down at him and he wished he could understand, wished he knew all of her secrets and the mysteries hiding inside of her.

Kate's lips skimmed over his, a delicate graze of her mouth - what a first kiss between them should have been like.

"Yes," she whispered. "It changes so much."

Her fingers splayed along his cheeks and she kissed him again, still soft but purposeful this time, and he returned the caress of her mouth with one of his own, slipping an arm around her back and curling a hand in her hair.

He didn't understand her, he doubted he ever would, but he hoped she would grant him the time to try.

* * *

"Go on a date with me."

Kate met his eyes in the mirror. She had led him into the shower earlier and now she looked as though she was preparing to leave. And he didn't want that.

"A date?" she echoed while she combed her fingers through her damp hair.

"Yeah, you know how when two people spend a day together-"

"I know that much, Castle. What I don't understand is why you think we need to go on one. Don't you think we kind of skipped over that part?" she hummed, a smirk on her lips as she let the towel around her chest drop, reaching for one of the complimentary bathrobes instead.

He shrugged, had to remember that taking it slow with Kate seemed to be the key when it came to more than sex. She was skittish, wary of him, and he didn't necessarily blame her. They were still strangers, but he wanted to change that.

"I'll take you to Disneyland."

She snorted, left him in the steam filled bathroom for the bedroom.

"The zoo?" he suggested, following after her. "The beach? Hollywood Walk of Fame? Natural History Museum of-"

"Those aren't date spots, those are tourist traps."

"Then I'll take you to lunch at my favorite restaurant," he bargained with a hopeful lift of his eyebrows.

She sighed, but he could feel she was relenting. "What if I want something simple?"

"Define simple."

Kate sauntered over to him from across the room where she had been gathering her clothing from the floor. "I want to go to the park," she said as she came to a stop in front of him, crossing her arms over her chest. "Just a simple walk in the park, maybe lunch too."

He was tempted to argue, just for the sake of challenging her sense of authority, but a walk in the park actually sounded… refreshing. They were in one of the most glamorous cities in the country, he was offering to take her wherever she wanted to go, no matter the price, and that didn't seem to matter one bit to her.

"Can I pick what we have for lunch?"

She rolled her eyes and stepped around him. "Sure, Castle."

"Hey, why do you call me that?"

She paused, but it was only a split second of stillness before she was slipping the robe off and stepping into her dress as she spoke. "I don't know. Just a habit, I guess."

"Habit?" he parroted, enjoying the view of her naked back, the ridges and sharp angles that made up her spine, her shoulder blades. Her body was a work of art that he wanted to spend an eternity marveling over.

"Where I used to work, everyone went by last names," she murmured, only managing to zip her dress halfway in the back, but not seeming to care.

She turned with her eyes to the ground, scanning for her shoes he was sure. He should help her search, but he was distracted by how different she looked without the heavy makeup and purposely tousled hair. Her fresh face and the slow drying locks that were beginning to curl around her neck made her appear softer despite the unchanging sexiness of that little black dress.

Now this looked more like the young woman he had met in a night club over half a decade ago.

"What do you do?" he asked, because he wanted to know as much as he could, but she pursed her lips at the question.

"Is it really important?" she countered, her voice sharpening from the lovely rasp he had woken to this morning, and he attempted to tread lighter.

"I just thought since you knew what I did, but if you'd rather not say…"

"I'd rather not say."

"Fine by me, I'll just ask again in a few hours."

She glared at him from the lounge area as she successfully snatched one of her heels from behind the couch. She located her matching stiletto near the front door and stepped into the black heels, gaining a few extra inches in height. He was prepared to protest when she hauled the door open, but she narrowed her eyes at him.

"I'll pick you up in an hour, Rick."

The door clicked shut behind her.

* * *

Kate had insisted she drive to their destination and she found it was quite amusing watching him witness her navigate through the nightmare that was LA traffic. She was surprised he didn't kiss the ground once they finally came to a stop inside Griffith Park.

"What's the matter, Castle? Your regular drivers not as skilled?" she quipped as she pushed her door open and stepped out onto the asphalt of the park road.

"That's one way of putting it," he muttered, hauling the ridiculous picnic basket he had brought along from the backseat of the rented black Charger, still refusing to tell her what he had packed for their lunch.

He started towards a row of picnic tables, but Kate reached for his hand, twined their fingers before she could think better of it, and began leading him towards a row of hills.

"Are we going hiking? Because I am not dressed for hiking," he informed her.

She glanced back, roving her eyes over his t-shirt, down to his jeans and sneakers. She had a feeling his attire wasn't the reason he would refuse a hike.

"No," she assured him, chuckling when he sighed in visible relief. "Just keep following me."

"Don't have to tell me twice."

She bit her lip, wished he would stop making the charming remarks. He had already bedded her, she didn't understand why he was still pursuing her with such persistence. What more could he want?

She feared she already knew.

Kate tugged him up a curved path, one that faced the hills he already disliked, but the path eventually opened up to an exhibit of what was once the old Los Angeles zoo.

"Have you ever been here?" she asked, looking back when he didn't answer.

By the awed expression on his face, she was guessing he hadn't. She hadn't either, but after she had left him earlier in the morning, she had done a quick search on the internet of places to picnic around the city. Griffith Park had been a number one hit, but she had wanted more than a typical picnic in the park. An abandoned zoo seemed unique enough.

Castle walked with her towards an empty rock enclosure that housed a few picnic tables and set the basket down on the one closest to the entry of a cave.

"What do you think lived in here once upon a time?" he asked as he studied the high arches of rock and the overgrown trees covering the top of the structure.

"Bears, I think. That's what most people say anyway." Kate took a seat on the wooden bench of the picnic table, watched his eyes - a stunning cerulean blue that were alight with intrigue - roam the area. "May be a lion's den though."

Castle sat down next to her. "Are we going to explore the rest of the zoo?"

She shrugged. "That was kind of the purpose."

He leaned over, startled her with the kiss to her cheek. It was too gentle, too much for someone who was supposed to be nothing more than a one-night stand.

This was such a bad idea. Why had she even agreed to a date, why had she set it up?

"This could potentially be the best date ever," he grinned, flipping open the top of the picnic basket, retrieving what looked to be two overly expensive sandwiches and bottles of sparkling water.

He looked so pleased with her and she wished she could go back to her meeting with Gina Cowell, she wished she had never agreed to any of this.


	9. Chapter 9

Kate allowed him to lead their exploration through the abandoned remains of the zoo grounds. She also allowed him to hold her hand, but he tried not to look so thrilled about it for her sake. They had just emerged from a decaying underground exhibit that was covered in graffiti and had paused to examine a rusting cage that once held a gorilla when Kate froze beside him, her whole body going stiff. Castle glanced to her in concern, saw her eyes were darting wildly around the open expanse of the park. He tried to follow her traveling gaze, but failed to determine what it was that could have her so on edge.

"Kate?"

Her eyes jerked back to him, feral and dark like one of the wild animals that had once roamed these ruins, and for a second, he was actually intimidated by her. But he still used his grip on her hand to will her closer, coil his arm around her back.

She allowed that too, even wrapping her own arm around his waist as she encouraged him towards the rock wall of the picnic area, where their date had begun a few hours earlier, but she still looked spooked.

"Hey," he said, catching her chin in his fingers. "What's wrong?"

She scanned the area one last time before she dropped her forehead to his shoulder, rested there for a handful of seconds before taking a step back, scraping her fingers through her hair.

"It's nothing," she murmured, swallowing hard because something had definitely rattled her.

"What was your job, the one you mentioned before?"

He was trying to take her mind off of whatever had unnerved her, but he also had an idea about the random startle, about what could have potentially caused it.

"I was a detective," she sighed, still not meeting his imploring gaze, walking in slow circles on the sidewalk instead. "NYPD."

Post traumatic stress then, maybe? He had done research on that once or twice, knew some of the symptoms. Perhaps she had seen something that triggered a memory, or maybe the cloudy weather overhead matched the day of some traumatic event she kept locked away in her mind. He frowned at the sky; figures it would actually rain in sunny Los Angeles during his date with her.

"Have you ever-"

"Stop trying to analyze me, I'm not a fucking book character," she spat, marching forward to snatch the empty picnic basket he had left on the table and storming away from him.

A raindrop hit his cheek. Their date was obviously over anyway.

Castle hurried after her, but her strides were long, covering ground twice as quickly as he was, and he resorted to jogging to keep up with her because she had the keys to the rental car and he didn't doubt she would ditch him.

"I wasn't analyzing you," he insisted when they reached the car.

She tossed the picnic basket in the back, slid into the front seat without even a glance in his direction and started the engine. He sprinted around to the passenger door before she could lock him out.

"I wasn't analyzing you," he repeated, but she kept her fiery gold eyes on the fat drops of rain hitting the windshield. "I was just trying to figure out what freaked you out back there."

She huffed. "I told you, it was nothing."

"Liar."

That earned him a look, a very menacing look, but he didn't waver, tilting his head, inviting her to elaborate with truth for once.

"I just had a feeling," she mumbled, picking at the denim of her jeans. "Like when you're being watched, you know? That's all."

He believed her. He also believed there was more to it than that, but he wasn't going to attempt to draw it out of her right now.

Castle covered the hand on her thigh, tangled their fingers.

"So, you were a detective," he mused. "That's hot."

She laughed, a melodious, unexpected sound, and then she leaned over, cupped his face in her palms and planted a chaste kiss on his lips that made his insides tingle. When she pulled away, the smile lacing her lips stole his breath. It wasn't seductive, nor teasing, but… happy, she looked happy.

It felt like a swift kick to his gut as he realized he wanted nothing more than to continue making her smile like that for a long time.

* * *

They grabbed dinner from a burger joint's drive through, shared fries and milkshakes in the front seat of her rental car, and she was almost surprised by how much he seemed to enjoy himself. Even after her small episode in the park, the light in his eyes still burned bright every time he looked at her.

Kate was sure they had been followed in the park, spied on, watched, and not just by random passerby. It was her job to know if she was being tailed, and she had been struck with the distinct feeling that she definitely was while in Griffith Park with him. What if she was taking too long to finish the job and Gina had become impatient, hired someone new? A visceral wave of protectiveness surged within her at the thought, just as it had in the park.

She wasn't willing to allow harm to befall Richard Castle, because she was attached, because she cared, and those were the worst possible rules of her job that she could break. How had she let things spiral out of her control so quickly?

The relief when they finally made it to his room that night was a welcome balm to her overworked nerves, but she knew she should have returned to her own suite, not his. She was only continuing to complicate her situation, her _assignment_. He was supposed to be an assignment.

They were slightly drenched from the short walk from her car to the hotel lobby, the rain still drizzling outside, and Castle seemed to relish in the sight of her black bra through the soaked fabric of her white t-shirt, skimming the underside of her breast through the wet material as soon as the front door locked behind them.

"When do you leave?" he murmured, eyes flickering up from her chest.

She breathed past the rush of sensation his touch evoked. "Tomorrow."

"Do you still live in New York?"

Oh… oh no. He was thinking that they could… He wanted more.

"No," she lied, but it was partially true. She had an apartment in New York, but she didn't live there full time.

She had expected a crestfallen expression at the answer, but he was undeterred, still hopeful.

"Where then?"

"Rick," she sighed, shaking her head and curling her fingers in the damp fabric of his blue shirt. "Why does it matter?"

He narrowed his gaze on her, crowded her back against the door. "You know why."

"I'm not looking for a relationship."

"Neither was I."

"Castle, I-"

His phone cut her off and she had never been so grateful for an interruption. Castle felt differently as he groaned and retrieved the ringing device from his front pocket, but his face still brightened at the name on the screen.

"Hey Pumpkin."

He moved away from her, strolling towards the bedroom with a soft smile on his lips. Kate ghosted her hand over the silver handle of the door she was still leaning against, contemplated slipping out. It was the perfect opportunity, she definitely needed to stop playing with the fire that was Richard Castle, but despite the logic, the reasoning, the screaming of her brain to open the goddamn door, her fingers remained hovering over the handle, never pushing down.

"I'll see you in the morning," she could hear him saying, his voice drifting closer once more, and the chance was gone. She dropped her hand to her side. "Yep, around lunchtime. Maybe I'll pick you up and we can grab a bite together."

God, he had a daughter. Gina had never fucking mentioned this. Not in person, not on paper, not once.

"Hey, you okay?"

She glanced up to see Castle watching her, the call with his daughter ended and the device now facedown in his hand.

"Yeah," she answered, pushing off the door and joining him in the living room.

He slipped his hand under her shirt, warm fingers dusting along the bottom of her spine, along the edge of her jeans. "I think Alexis would like you."

She diverted her eyes, trained them on his Adam's apple. "Your daughter."

"My daughter," he confirmed with a nod, pride in his voice, and the familiar sensation of ice water drenching her guts made her feel sick. She knew he had a child after witnessing him speak to her earlier that same morning, but he hadn't brought her up throughout their day – her fault for voiding personal topics – and she had been unfairly glad, because knowing he had a daughter made what she had to do so much worse.

"Kate?"

"You know I won't meet her. I can't."

"You could if you wanted to."

"I won't."

"Why not?"

"Because that isn't how this works, Rick," she sighed in exasperation, a sharp headache already building between her eyebrows. "Today was great, but you leave tomorrow and that's it for you and me."

"But it doesn't have to be, you know that."

He stole the protest from her lips, slipped his tongue inside her mouth, made her momentarily forget why she was fighting against him. She grunted and kept him away with her hands at his chest when she tore her mouth from his.

She had been hired to kill him.

His hand curled around her nape, attempted to coax her back to him, but she turned her head, focused on the carpet.

"You like me, Kate," he murmured against her temple, having the audacity to _tease _her while the anguish devoured her from the inside out. "And I think you've missed me over the years, just like I've missed you."

His lips caressing the underside of her jaw eased the ache rippling through her bones, and her body yearned to be lost in him again, to forget for a while. One of his hands slithered around, brushed her side with his knuckles before his palm flattened against her abdomen. Her spine curved for him, like a puppet on strings, and she tried to fight the pull, tried to ignore the liquid fire splashing her stomach.

His hand ventured a few inches further, teased at the waist of her jeans, thumb circling the button, and her hips canted into him without permission.

"Tell me you missed me, Kate."

"I hate you," she growled, attempting to catch his wrist, but his fingers remained clutched around her jeans while his other hand became ensnared in the tangled mass of her damp hair.

He tilted her face upwards and she went for his mouth, but he lifted his chin out of her reach and she cursed him, cursed herself.

"This doesn't feel like the end for you and me," he mused, toying with the band of purple cotton beneath her pants. "We have so much left."

He was attempting to convince her and it wouldn't work, but her resistance did not change the fact the she wanted everything he could offer. She wanted more with him too, more than hotel rooms and a spontaneous date in a popular park, but she wouldn't have it. And even if she could, even if they had met under completely different circumstances, she would still destroy him and he deserved better than that.

Her hands flew to his face, cradling his jaw as she rose on the balls of her feet to kiss him.

"Missed me," he smirked through the onslaught of her mouth. "Definitely missed me."

She rolled her eyes, lashes fluttering against his cheeks, but listed into him when his arms came around her back, pressed her as close as possible. She would enjoy her last few hours with him, she would allow herself that much.

"Castle, just - shut up and keep kissing me."


	10. Chapter 10

Kate slipped from the warm sheets at four a.m., padded silently to the bathroom and wrapped herself in the robe she had acquired since staying with him. Rick had fallen asleep shortly after she had practically worshipped his body, using a foreign but attentive reverence she hadn't even known she possessed.

She'd had sex before, great sex, but what she had done with Castle felt far too close to the borderline of more, much more. And more was _not_ an option.

She didn't even know who she was around him anymore - definitely not the seductive, hard edged assassin who had lured him into her trap - but she worried she was beginning to like the person she was when with him better than without, and that was dangerous.

Beckett soundlessly crept out of his suite and tiptoed across the hall to hers in nothing but the stolen bathrobe with her clothes slung over her arm and her shoes hooked on her fingertips. She dropped her belongings in the entryway and slumped back against the door, took a moment to breathe, to collect herself before she ended up panicking. She tried to smooth a hand through her hair, a self-soothing technique she had picked up from her mother, but her fingers were immediately caught in a web of tangles.

The rain had already left her hair into a state of unruly curls and kinks, but Castle's hands had knotted in the locks when they were-

Kate pressed the tips of her fingers into her eyes, as if she could push the returning headache back, and headed straight for the bathroom.

She turned the high-powered shower on as hot as it would go, waited until steam clouded the entire room to step inside the glass enclosure, hissing under the burn of the water, but forcing herself to remain under the scorching spray. Punishment for the slew of mistakes she had made in the last two days.

She combed her fingers through her hair until the knots were eradicated, blindly grabbed for the bar of soap in the dish on the wall and scrubbed rigorously at her pink skin, trying to wash away the last 48 hours from her body to no avail. She still felt him on her, all over her, seeped into her pores, flowing through her system-

"Dammit," she choked, sliding to her knees, the cool tile a relief to her raw skin, as she reached for the shower nozzle, worked it in the opposite direction until the water soothed instead of seared. She was better than this.

Silence and the dark trenches of grief had become her home throughout the last nine years, encompassing her with numbing comfort yet tightening around her like a noose at the same time. She was defined by loss, but she didn't want to lose Castle too. Not to the greedy hands of death.

With a new determination, she cut the shower off and dried quickly with a towel. She dressed in the single work appropriate blouse and pair of slacks she had packed and tied her hair into a wet rope at her neck. She would blow dry it later if she had the time. It was nearing five a.m. in California, but it was already close to eight in New York.

She found her phone in her jeans' pocket by the door and scrolled through the meager display of numbers on the burner cell until she found Gina Cowell's.

It only took one ring for the other woman to answer.

"Is it done?"

"You didn't tell me he had a daughter," she hissed as soon as she was greeted by the callously cool tone of Gina's voice.

Gina scoffed. "Why does it matter?"

"It-" Because of the two hours she spent lying in his bed as he slept, the image of his daughter suddenly fatherless continued to haunt her in the darkness, but she swallowed down her indignation, reminded herself why it mattered to her as a professional and not as an orphan herself. "It matters because it is important information that you _failed_ to include. When my employer told you that the information packet was supposed to consist of all vital facts pertaining to the target, he meant everything. Whether the subject has children or not falls under that category."

"I really don't see why this is such a problem," Gina sighed, as if this conversation was a total waste of her precious time and Kate's nostrils flared.

She wasn't sure how old his daughter was, but Kate would guess she had to be a teenager at least, and from the sounds of their phone calls, Castle and his daughter - Alexis, she remembered him calling her - were close. Castle was a single parent, she was sure of that much, and that meant he was all that Alexis had. Killing Castle would leave his daughter an orphan and Gina didn't see why that was a _problem_?

"Lying to me can lead to termination of the contract, Ms. Cowell," Kate countered sharply, receiving silence on the other end of the line before she heard the clipped sound of a door being shut.

"I believe the contract ends when I say it does," Gina snapped, and Kate balled her fist at her side, strode towards the closet in the bedroom and began retrieving her clothing from the racks and drawers.

"You don't have that authority. I do. And I say the deal is off."

She startled at the actual snarl Gina released into the phone. "I'm paying you a lot of money to-"

"And you'll be refunded in full," Kate assured her, forcing her voice to remain level, forcing herself not to say something regrettable to a woman she had never liked to begin with.

"You can't do this."

"I can and I have."

"You fell for him, didn't you?" Gina questioned in disbelief and Kate's hand paused over the soggy pair of jeans she was folding. "You haven't even been there the two full _days _and you're supposed to be a _professional_."

"My personal feelings have no dictation in this-"

"Bullshit!" the other woman spat and Kate swore she heard something break before there was a brief stretch of quiet. "You know what, fine. It's not a problem," she said at last, too calm for someone who had just been on a verbal tirade, and Kate hastened her packing process. "Your company was never my only option. I'll find someone else, and be assured, the next person I hire _will _get the job done."

Gina hung up and Kate bit her lip, pressed the second of her three contacts on the burner phone without a moment of hesitation and waited.

"McCord speaking."

"Rachel," she breathed in relief as soon as the call connected.

"What's the matter, Beckett?" McCord questioned without preamble, alert and ready to have her back should she need assistance.

Kate sat back on her heels, scrubbed a hand across her eyes. "I'm going to need a safe house."

"What the hell happened?"

"The client backed out," Kate informed her, zipping her duffel closed and scraping her hair from the puddle it had created along her shoulder. "She's going to look for better services and that means Mr. Castle's life could be in real danger."

Rachel was quiet on the other line and then she sighed. Kate could picture her partner pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger in frustration.

"You're going to need to get back to New York, both of you. It's the only place I have an availability."

Going back towards the enemy rather than away. Not ideal, but better than remaining sitting ducks in LA.

"That's fine, I'll get us a flight out, pay with cash, and make sure Castle goes undetected," Beckett summarized, mentally cataloguing the to do list in her head as she paced the room. It shouldn't be too hard to escort him safely to a plane, but with her luck…

"Does he know yet?" McCord inquired and Kate paused, holding her breath for a moment too long. "You haven't _told _him?"

"I had planned to yesterday, but I never found the right time," she argued, but it was weak and she was sure her partner could read the flaws in her excuse.

She should have told him the truth that very first day, lured him away from the pool and up to the safety of her room. She should have told him the truth, but had selfishly succumbed to the thrill of being with him again, the thrill of _feeling _again, instead. She should have told him yesterday, at the park, explained her real reason for pursuing him while they'd meandered their way through the old zoo, but hadn't wanted to suck the joy from his eyes and now his life was at greater risk than ever.

She had taken advantage of his trust in her, of their past connection, and she had failed to do her own job, compromised the entire mission because of it.

What kind of an agent was she?

"You're not compromised, are you?" McCord asked, a hint of skepticism in the question that had Kate bristling. "With this assignment, with Mr. Castle?"

Kate grit her teeth. "I've never-"

"No, but there's a first time for everything," Rachel reasoned, growing quieter, likely so fellow agents in the office wouldn't catch on to the personal turn their conversation had taken. "It's happened before to plenty of others."

Kate chewed hard on her lower lip, weighed the decisions and repercussions in only a split second.

"Not to me. Don't worry, Rachel. I'm not compromised."


	11. Chapter 11

It couldn't have been more than a small handful of hours when Rick awoke startled to someone banging on the door to his suite. And then he heard her voice, an audible tinge of desperation curling around his name as she slammed her fist into the door, and Castle stumbled out of the bed, pulled on his boxers from the night before and scrambled to let her in before she alerted security.

"Kate, what-"

"No time," she stated as she strode inside, dressed extremely different from last night in a professional white button down and slimming black slacks. She surpassed him for the bedroom, where she went straight for his closet.

He followed her in confusion, saw her throwing all of his clothes on the bed and rolling his suitcase out.

"What's going on?" She ignored him, hauled his suitcase onto the bed and began stuffing his clothes inside. "_Kate._"

She stopped, but when she looked up at him, her eyes were frantic and her bottom lip was raw and trembling. Rick tentatively moved closer to stand in front of her, placed his hands on her shoulders and felt she was actually shaking.

He narrowed his eyes on her. "What's wrong?"

Her mouth moved and for a moment, nothing came out, but then she pulled his hands from her shoulders, clenched them painfully tight in her own.

"I can't go on lying to you," she whispered, dropping his hands and crossing her arms over her chest instead, digging her fingers into her biceps while he felt his stomach drop.

"I thought we were done lying to each other," he said, forcing his voice to remain even, but a nervous sweat was cumulating on his naked back. Obviously, there were still secrets. He had only known her for barely two full days, but lies were different. Lies were worse.

"This is different," she murmured, reaching for the clothes now strewn across his sheets and handing him a t-shirt. He slid it on, took the pair of jeans she offered next, but he caught her wrist when she attempted to continued stalling in the form of dressing him.

"Tell me."

She planted her hands on her hips and pursed her lips, squared her shoulders as if preparing herself for a fight before finally meeting his stare.

"Your wife…" Oh, _oh_. How did she know about that? He couldn't blame her if that was what she was upset about, sleeping with a married man, but- "She hired me to kill you."

He froze, felt his heart still before stumbling to resume beating.

That was the last thing he would have ever expected to come out of her mouth. And he found that he didn't believe it. He couldn't. Gina would never… would she?

"What - what are you talking about?"

Kate sighed, slipped her hand into her back pocket and produced a leather wallet, but when she held it up to him, let it flip open, he saw it was an ID with a badge. Credentials.

Holy shit.

"Who are you?" he breathed, taking an unsteady step back from her, and he noticed she had to stop herself from moving after him.

"Special Agent Kate Beckett, undercover operations," she confessed with downcast eyes, returning the credentials to her pocket, but still keeping her gaze to the floor. "Your wife contacted my fake agency, I met with her earlier this week and she instructed me to…"

"_Kill _me?" he finished for her in disbelief. "You're lying. You can't be-"

"I'm not," she insisted vehemently. "I have proof."

Her fingers hooked on the zipper of her bag, but he lifted his hands to stop her, placed them on his knees as he doubled over. "There's no way…"

Kate's hand hovered at his shoulder but he knocked it away, stood up straight and paced further away from her.

She sighed but made no attempt to touch him again. "I never intended to hurt you, Castle."

"Never intended to sleep with me either, right? Or is that part of the job too?" he growled, the angry bitterness surprising him, but it felt like betrayal and he was sick of every woman in his life betraying him, _hurting _him.

"No," she answered, her composure well and intact as his continued to crumble to pieces. "It was never supposed to go that far and I apologize for taking advantage of the situation."

"Well, I don't," he snapped, walking around her to snag a plaid over shirt from the small fabric pile and pushing his arms through the sleeves. "But I'm supposed to pretend I do for your benefit, or better yet, the sake of this so called operation, right?"

"Listen, I know you're angry, but we have to move, Rick. We have to-"

"You think I'm leaving here with you?"

"If you prefer to live, you really don't have a choice," she said pointedly, her patience with him slipping, but he only scowled at her.

"I always have a choice and it is definitely not you," he snapped, his voice shaking with the rising edge of rage.

He noticed her shrink back a fraction, a little wounded at that, but he was not exactly concerned with _her _feelings at the moment.

He watched her take in a deep breath before she looked at him again. "I am with the FBI, I am here to protect you – that's all. You don't even have to acknowledge me, Rick. Just let me prevent your murder."

He scoffed. The way she spoke to him, with such impersonal ease, infuriated him. How dare she treat him like - like he was just some assignment after everything that had happened within the last 48 hours, after everything she had _done_. No, she did not get to drag him into damn near falling in love with her and then talk to him, look at him, as if they were strangers.

"Just another job to you then?" he muttered with the bitterness sparking on his tongue and Kate rubbed a hand down her face in obvious exasperation. Their relationship - if he could even call it that - was the last thing he should be focusing on if what she had told him was in fact true, but he couldn't resist. Who knew when he would get the chance to ask her again, to learn a piece of the truth in her lies? For all he knew, she planned to disappear again as soon as she could and he was desperate for something real before she did. "Or do you do this with all of the men you're supposed to be _protecting_?"

She sent him a reproachful glare at that, a warning that he was pushing it, to tread lighter, but he didn't care and he wouldn't. Not anymore.

"No, I do not," she answered through gritted teeth before raking her fingers through her hair and clasping them at the back of her neck, taking in another deep breath to collect herself, to stay calm, but he didn't want her calm. He wanted her as wrecked and wounded as he felt. "But Castle, you have to take into consideration that we barely know each other, you can't think I-"

"Are you kidding me?" It took everything he had not to shout at her, to unleash his building rage on her in the suddenly too small hotel room. "Do you know how hard it was to take my mind off of you, of what we did, after that night we met?" he demanded, voice rough, raw and exhausted from this disaster of a morning. "I don't believe in love at first sight, but there was something real there that I've never felt before, not with anyone else, not so fast, and I don't want to let it go again. Even after - even now." He held her gaze, daring her to dispute his statement, but she merely blinked in surprise at the admission. And then it was as though the shutters had been drawn, the walls that fortified her heart already rising up to keep him out.

"Love?" she parroted back, bafflement clouding her voice before resolution took over and she shook her head, shook off his words. "You don't love me. Don't say things like that."

"I could." He shrugged his shoulders, knowing he was most likely making her head spin, but his head had been spinning for days - years, really - over her.

"No," she rasped, her voice slowly building as she moved for his suitcase again, fixing her gaze on his clothes, folding them and arranging them neatly in the carryon. "You can't _love_ me, Rick. You won't. No matter what this is, whatever happened last night or yesterday, or the night before, or even seven years ago - it isn't like that. No strings, no attachments, that's the deal," she instructed, more to herself than him it seemed, her eyes burning gold with determination as she stared at her hands, but he could see the leaks of resolve springing through. She could pretend she felt nothing for him, but he could tell she was struggling.

He growled, low in his throat, and watched her stiffen at the noise. "I never agreed to that deal."

"Too bad."

It was an odd sensation, to hate her for lying, for using him, yet to still want her just as intensely as he had before she'd revealed the truth of why she had shown any interest in him in the first place. But he refused to believe it was all a ruse, a job, especially after last night. How she had touched him… he could not be convinced she was _that_ good of an actress.

He attempted to ignore the flares of aggravation still bubbling beneath the surface of his skin and pressed on.

"You know it doesn't work like that," he countered, moving in on her once more. She didn't back away, pretended not to acknowledge him. "I'm already attached."

"I won't love you back," she grounded out, slamming his suitcase closed but he caught her by the wrist, forced her to look at him and matched her fierce glare of indignation when she did.

"But I can love you?"

"Castle," she huffed, wrenching free of his hold. "We have to go, okay? I have to get you to a safe house in New York until the threat on your life is neutralized and we're wasting time here."

A safe house? Huh. This was kind of cool if he forgot about the fact that his wife wanted him dead and the woman he had serious feelings for hadn't just betrayed his trust. Bad, very bad, but still cool.

"Do you have her on conspiracy to commit murder?" he inquired out of curiosity and Kate visibly relaxed at the work related question, a question she could actually answer.

"We will, but she's currently on the run according to my people. I was supposed to keep an eye on you until they caught her, but then I screwed up and she got suspicious, dropped us for a different agency, a _real _agency."

She looked so disappointed with herself for apparently spooking Gina and he reached to touch her back before thinking better of it. He needed to stop that, stop viewing her as someone he could potentially care about, not when she probably didn't care for him at all. Maybe she really was that good, maybe she was just as heartless as the woman she was trying to protect him from.

"Why does Gina want me dead? I know our marriage is falling apart-"

"That's exactly why," she replied, stalking away from him and methodically working her way around his suite, retracting something from the back of the flat screen television, the lamp on the nightstand, the flowers in the living room – she had _bugged _his room?

"You've been spying on me?" he asked incredulously, and she paused for a moment, but then continued as if he hadn't even spoken.

"She claims that if you divorce, she has a lot to lose."

He groaned under his breath, pressed the heels of his palms into the sockets of his eyes until the pressure made his corneas throb. "Maybe I shouldn't have threatened to fire her the last time we had a fight. She's my publisher," he informed her when she glanced back at him in question.

"That would make sense," she agreed, making one last sweep of the room with her eyes. "No money, no steady income, lots of legal issues – decent motives. Are you ready to go?"

He glanced around his hotel suite without really seeing anything. His anger towards her was still present, but deflated, only disbelief remaining in its place. "Guess so."

He met her at the door, but hesitated.

"Kate," he murmured, so much crammed into the single syllable of her name and she turned to him with eyes that were soft in understanding. He wasn't a professional like her, knew his emotions were playing out across his face, knew that she could see he was scared.

"I won't let anything happen to you, Castle. We have a team on your daughter so-"

He jerked as if she had struck him.

Oh god, Alexis. _His daughter._

He growled, balling his fists at his side as if he could fight the sudden threat on his family with his bare hands. "If anyone touches her-"

Kate's hand lifted to the side of his neck, fingers curved over his thundering pulse.

"No one will hurt her or anyone you love. I promise you, but I don't know what kind of time frame we have right now, how quickly your wife will have someone new on the hunt for you, so we can't risk it. The sooner we're in the air on the way to the safe house, the better."

He wanted to argue, wanted another way that did not involve leaving his daughter to hide like a coward, but he fought the urge to protest and nodded instead, took her hand when she ghosted her fingers along his knuckles, and allowed her to lead him out of the hotel room, down the hall to the elevator.

"She's not my wife," he muttered, clenching his fist around the handle of his suitcase as they stepped inside the lift.

Kate coasted her hand up to his shoulder and squeezed lightly, waited until the elevator had taken them down to the lobby to respond.

"She doesn't deserve to be."


	12. Chapter 12

At the airport, she bought him a hoodie from the gift shop that was two sizes too big and had too many cliché images representing the state of California on the front.

"To distort the look of your build," she explained, drawing the hood up and over his head and disheveling the front of his hair with her fingers.

She had torn up his original plane ticket during the cab ride, purchased them both new ones that would take them to an airport in Connecticut instead of JFK in New York. According to Beckett, they would drive to the location of the safe house in New York as soon as they landed.

"You need to call your daughter," she instructed when they arrived in the correct terminal. "You have to tell her your book signing got extended for an extra couple of days."

"Lie to her?" he questioned, already hating this idea. He didn't want to do this anymore. He just wanted to go home. "Kate, I can't. I-"

Kate closed her fingers around each of his elbows, drawing him in closer, and he knew she was using her touch to influence him. And that it was working.

"She can't know, Castle. She has to think everything is fine or else she could accidentally alert Gina to what's going on," she explained in a placating tone that made him feel like a child.

"I thought Gina was gone."

"As far as we know, she is, but she could be watching. Just to be certain."

He felt the constricting vice of panic return at the thought of unwanted eyes on his daughter. He should have told her to change the locks.

"The last time we spoke," Kate started hesitantly, running her thumbs in small circles over the jutted angles of his bones. "She was suspicious of me, of my… my feelings towards you. She might think I plan to clue you into what's going on."

Castle swiped a hand across his eyes, nodding thoughtfully. "Yeah, Gina's pretty perceptive."

"And she was right."

His eyes snagged hers.

"Right about which part?" he murmured.

She sighed, squeezed his arms and held his gaze so that he could see the truth when she spoke it. "All of it, but we can't risk letting her know that," Kate pressed, no doubt trying to keep his mind from lingering too long on that small piece of her confession concerning her feelings towards him, but as if he was going to let _that _go anytime soon. "So use your phone to call Alexis, then dump it, and you can use mine to contact her throughout the rest of your time away."

Right, he had watched her dispose of her old phone outside of the hotel lobby and purchase a new one with cash at a convenience store she made their cabbie stop at. It eased his nerves that she at least knew what she was doing, but lying to his daughter, being away from her for an indefinite amount of time because his wife was trying to kill him… He had the threatening urge to vomit.

"You might…" Kate hesitated, shifted from foot to foot, and he slid a hand onto her waist, stilled her. "You should probably call Gina too."

"No."

"Rick-"

"I won't be able to hide it," he growled. "Like I said, Gina is smart and she'll hear it in my voice. She'll figure out that I know within seconds."

"Not if you just pretend. C'mon Castle, I saw you at your book signing the other day. You were dead tired, but it didn't show at all when you were in front of your fans," she coaxed and again, he felt the dull flare of betrayal attempting to form in the pit of his stomach.

"I really don't know how to feel about you spying on me," he grumbled as he withdrew his phone from his jacket pocket.

"Think of it as looking over you." He glanced up at her, saw the timid to form smile on her lips and he huffed a small laugh.

It was either laugh or cry.

"You my guardian angel now?" he teased, but his heart wasn't in it, and she leaned into his side, brushed a kiss to his cheek.

"Call your daughter first."

They sat down on the edge of a mostly empty row of seats in the terminal lounge, their flight still having fifteen minutes before boarding was called. He dialed Alexis's number with heavy fingers and closed his eyes as he listened to the phone ring.

"Hey Dad," his daughter answered with the usual lilt of cheeriness lacing through her voice. "How's your day going so far?"

"Fine," he replied, but the word was strangled and Kate squeezed her fingers around his knee. "But I have some news."

"Is everything okay?" Alexis asked in concern, her young voice already so serious, reminding him again of how mature his daughter was for her age. She could handle this.

"Yeah, yeah, it's not necessarily anything bad. I just won't be able to come home yet," he explained, sighing with a hint of regret, not too much, not as much as he felt. Alexis was smart too, and she _knew_ him, almost as well as he knew himself. He had to orchestrate his tone, his answers, in a way that would convey a truth she would actually believe.

"Oh," she murmured, the disappointment evident in her response and Castle felt his heart clench. "Why?"

"Gina extended my time here, wants me to do some signings around the rest of California. All the big cities, you know?"

She sighed, sounding more irritated than alarmed now. "I guess I understand. Don't worry, Dad. Gram doesn't mind staying a few more days."

"That's extreme cause to worry," he joked and felt relief flood his chest when Alexis laughed softly.

"Don't be mean," she chided. "You'll still call every day?"

"Of course, Pumpkin," he promised her, but really, he wasn't necessarily sure. Would he be able to call her everyday? Would it be safe? Would it put his daughter at risk?

"Good. Just try to have fun, Dad. You'll be home before you know it," she assured him and he could picture the sweet smile that was probably gracing her lips.

He rubbed his fingers into the nape of his neck.

"I will. And Alexis, I love you."

"I love you too," she replied automatically, blessedly oblivious.

"That was hard," he muttered to Kate once the call had disconnected.

She slipped an arm through his, surprised him as she tilted against him and rested her cheek on the rounded edge of his shoulder.

"You're a good dad. And you're doing your best to protect her. She'd be thankful if she knew."

"I don't know if I ever want her to know. She doesn't care much for Gina, but to know the woman who's been living in our home for nearly two years is essentially a killer…" He took a shuddering breath and Kate lifted her head. He glanced to her, tried to draw strength from the understanding in her eyes. He wondered if she had been through this before, if whatever had happened to her in the past, whatever loss he imagined she must have suffered, had made her this way. "I don't want this to affect my daughter."

"You can't protect her from everything," she reasoned, and even though he knew it was the truth, he had the urge to argue. "But you can be alive for her."

He buried his head in his hands for a moment, took a deep breath, and dialed Gina's number before he could think better of it.

"Richard," she greeted, reciting his name in that clipped, sardonic tone she always used when she was annoyed with him. "Enjoying your final day on the west coast?"

"Immensely," he lied, channeling his kaleidoscope of emotions into a smooth and carefree act he knew all too well. If she could lie to his face for god knows how long about wanting him dead, he could play along just as effortlessly. "I think I may stay another day or two."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, the weather is just too good here. Among other things."

He knew he was testing boundaries, playing with fire by using a blatant insinuation, especially by the warning glance Kate shot him. _Don't push too hard. _But he wanted Gina to know he was enjoying his time away from her, he wanted her as furious as he felt.

"Well, I'm thrilled to hear you're having such a good time," she snapped, venomous. "But you do have responsibilities here, you know."

"You mean the next book? Don't worry, Gina. I've already gotten a few chapters done. I've found a _ton_ of inspiration while I've been here."

He heard Gina expel a sharp breath through her nose, a distinct sign that she was fuming but attempting to keep her calm exterior.

"I have to go now," he quipped, ending the call just as Gina barked his name. "Good enough?" he asked, turning to Kate, who was watching him with a narrowed, reprimanding gaze.

"Don't poke the bear, Castle," she reprimanded, jabbing her finger into his chest for emphasis. "She's more dangerous than she seems."

He gave in and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pressed his forehead to hers as he grinned. "Good thing I have you protecting me, Agent Beckett."

She shoved his arm from around her just as their flight number was called, but he saw she was smothering a grin of her own.

* * *

"Why do you do it?"

Kate turned her gaze away from the window to see him watching her, like he had been for the entire flight. Studying her with intent concentration for three hours straight. She was already aware of what he was referring to, but she still inclined her head in inquiry.

"Undercover work. You've obviously been doing it for a while and something tells me you chose to be placed in this line of your work."

She really didn't want to talk about it, knew he could _see _that she didn't want to talk about it, but he still pressed on. Too insistent for the story, for her story.

"Is it the same reason why you always look so empty?"

She squared her jaw, irritation bubbling with the starting ache in her chest.

"Sometimes, Castle, there is no story. Sometimes a person just goes into my profession for the satisfaction of justice," she answered, cutting her eyes back to the blue sky and the thin streaks of clouds sailing beneath the plane.

"Oh, there's always a story, Agent Beckett."

"Shh," she hissed, smacking him on the arm. "Do you not comprehend the meaning of _undercover_?"

"Always a chain of events that makes everything make sense," he mused on as if she had never said a word, but still rubbing below his shoulder where her fist had connected. "Take you for example-"

"Stop it."

"Under normal circumstances, you should not be here. Most smart, good looking women become lawyers, not - _owww_."

Kate released his ear when the passing flight attendant shot the two of them a warning glance.

"I said _stop_."

"Then _tell me_. You owe me that much," he reasoned, demanding and pleading all at once and she glared at him in incredulous indignation.

"I owe you? I'm the one trying to save your life, but _I _owe_ you_? Yeah, that makes total sense," she muttered but he stole her hand from the armrest, clasped their palms together.

"Take a chance and trust me, Kate."

"Trust you?" she whispered in exasperation, leaning closer to keep their conversation from the ears of fellow passengers. "Why would I-"

"Because you care about me." He shrugged his shoulders, like it was the simplest explanation in the world. "Just like I care about you."

"You shouldn't," she sighed, returning her gaze to the window and the midday blue sky outside. Castle had mentioned he didn't like flying very much, but she always felt safest in the air where no one could touch her. She was aware of every person on this flight, knew no one here had the intention to harm her or the man next to her.

Rick didn't speak, sat back in his seat and refrained from pushing for the information he wanted, although she knew he would try again sooner rather than later. For now, he smoothed his thumb over her knuckle, drawing slow circles over the ridge of bone, and she didn't know why she did it, what it was about him that screwed with all of her well-developed defenses, but she brought the back of his hand to her lips, deposited a kiss to his skin before dropping their hands back to the armrest.

She wished the plane would never land.


	13. Chapter 13

Castle's hand drifted across the center console and rose to dust his fingertips at her collarbone, migrating closer to her shoulder, slipping underneath the edge of her blouse, and lingering on the puckered skin there.

"What happened here?"

Kate batted his hand away, but his fingers were like gnats, flittering away at her touch only to return to pester her skin again after only a second.

"It's just a scar, Castle."

"From a bullet," he murmured, sweeping his thumb back and forth over the healed wound, memorizing the feel of it and eliciting an odd wave of self-consciousness from deep in her stomach. No one ever lingered on her scars, not even herself. No, she kept it all locked away in a box that resembled Pandora's, never to be opened without consequences. "I've done enough research for Derrick Storm to know what a gunshot wound looks like."

She shrugged her shoulder, dislodged his hand from her damaged skin.

"You could have chosen to do this some other time, you know, like when I'm not driving," she muttered.

"Like all the times we were in bed?"

She pursed her lips. "I'm trying to concentrate on the road, Castle."

"We've been on an empty highway for half an hour," he pointed out and she didn't have to look to know he was smirking. He thought he was so clever.

"I still don't want to crash the vehicle by getting distracted."

"I distract you, Agent?"

She rolled her eyes at the smug quality to his voice and tightened her hands on the steering wheel of the rental van. "You annoy me."

"Same thing."

"Not the same. Just shut up and stop touching me."

"Usually it's the other way around."

Kate clenched her teeth, but exhaled a sigh of relief when her phone interrupted the crackling silence between them.

"Don't say anything," she warned as she withdrew the phone from the cup holder between their two seats.

"Are you ashamed of me, Agent Beckett? Don't want the other agents to know of our tryst?"

She might kill him if she had to spend another hour in an enclosed space with him.

"Beckett," she answered the call, sparing a second from the road to glare at Castle in warning.

"Beckett, it's McCord. I have some bad news," her partner informed her and Kate scrubbed at her forehead, tried to brace herself.

"What else is new?"

"Keep your chin up, Kate. But yeah, that safe house you're heading to… it's unavailable."

"What do you mean it's unavailable?" she hissed, a cool strip of panic slithering down her spine, but she quickly reined it in as Rachel explained how they needed the home for another agent in a more pressing situation. She counted to ten in her head, scrambled for a solution.

There was her apartment in the city, in Harlem. It was secure, but not secure enough. She couldn't take him down to her place in DC either, it was way too far and she knew he wouldn't be happy venturing even further from his daughter. Her contemplative silence was beginning to stretch for too long when it hit her. She hesitated for only a moment before the decision in her head was made and she was assuring Rachel of her new plan. "It's fine, I have another place. Off the books."

"Do you want backup?" McCord asked in apologetic concern. "I could send another agent-"

"No, Rachel. I've got it under control." She stole a sideways glance at Castle, who was watching her with a twinge of nervousness in his wide blue eyes. She thoughtlessly reached for his knee, found her hand trapped there by his own a moment later.

"I'll call you as soon as we've got Cowell in custody."

"Thanks."

Kate reclaimed her hand again to remove the phone from between her ear and her shoulder, thumbing the device off and tucking it into the outer pocket of her leather jacket.

Castle waited a full three seconds before asking, "Where are we going?"

He had asked the question every hour since they had landed in Connecticut, but this time, there was an anxious uncertainty lacing through his voice.

"Someplace safe."

"I gathered that," he huffed, scrambling to grab the handle on the side of the passenger door when she made a sharp left turn.

"As you probably heard, the safe house I'd intended for us to use is occupied right now, so I'm taking us to a place of my own," she hedged, rolling her shoulders to alleviate some of the stiffness settling there. They had been driving for three hours, stopping only once for gas, and after a near six-hour flight, they were both growing stir crazy. Her new destination was luckily closer than the safe house would have been and for that, she was thankful.

They both needed out of this car.

"Mysterious. I like it."

"Is that why you seem to like me so much, Castle? A conquest with mysteries you've yet to figure out?" she joked around the lid of her gas station coffee that had already gone cold.

While he had slept through the fifth hour of their flight, she had come to the conclusion that a mysterious bedfellow was really all she would ever be to him; it was the only reason he had remained intrigued by her for this long. If he were to figure her out, peel away all the layers and learn all the secrets, he would lose interest. That is, if she didn't overwhelm him with all of her baggage first. Either way, he would move on, leave her with nothing but another crack in her heart and the stupid hope that still flared in her chest every time she looked at him.

He had talked of loving her, but she wasn't a fool. If anything, he was in love with the idea of her. Nothing more.

"I think you're more of a mystery I'll never solve," he countered, pulling her from her reverie but she refused to look at him, because if the tone of his voice was any indication, he would have sincerity etched into his eyes and she couldn't handle that right now.

She chuckled instead and didn't startle when his fingers dusted over her nape yet again, pressing into her skin and kneading the knotted muscles lining her neck and shoulders.

"You're going to put me to sleep," she warned on a sigh, keeping her attention on the road but reveling in the soothing undoing of stress under her skin.

"How much longer?" he murmured, fingers traveling up to the soft hollow between her skull and her vertebrae.

She hummed, blinking to force her eyes from slipping shut. "Just one more hour. Have to take all the back roads, just to be safe."

Kate allowed herself to enjoy the massage he proceeded to give her scalp for only a few moments before shaking him off.

"How many years have you been looking over your shoulder, Beckett?"

She sighed, should have known that lulling touch of his would lead to an ulterior motive.

"Three."

That was how many years she had been on the job after leaving her place at the Twelfth Precinct in New York, but she knew she had been looking over her shoulder for many years before that. Ever since she was nineteen.

"Either you're a quick learner, or you're just a natural. Have you ever considered going into the CIA? Oh, that would be so cool," he gushed, the childlike glimmer of an excited little boy spreading in his eyes and warming the tired muscle in her chest. "I followed a CIA agent once, the inspiration for my character, Clara Strike, but she was nothing compared to you."

She rolled her eyes, ignored the subtle but striking flare of jealousy in her abdomen. "I'm content where I am."

He hummed a sound of acknowledgment. "What's your partner like?"

"Rachel? She's reliable, trustworthy." She shrugged, ticking off the qualities in her head. "I know she has my back."

"Does she know… everything?"

Kate sighed. She did feel a little guilty about keeping certain aspects of the situation to herself, about lying, but she didn't see it necessary to share the fact that she and Castle had a history, nor the fact that they had rekindled some of that history two nights ago.

"No."

"Did you ever tell anyone? Back then?"

"No. It was…" She searched her brain for the right way to describe it, knew she would never find anything adequate enough. "Why would I share that with anyone? Did you, _Alex_?"

He lowered his eyes from her, even flushed in what she was sure was embarrassment as he rubbed a hand along the back of his neck.

"I only gave you a fake name because I didn't want you to recognize me."

She scoffed. "You give your celebrity status too much credit. I didn't even know who Richard Castle was back then."

"Well, even so, maybe I didn't want to be Richard Castle that night. People, women, treat me a certain way, and I won't say it isn't flattering, that I haven't taken advantage of it, but that night, I just wanted to be me and you allowed me to do that."

She snuck a glance at him, saw he was staring down at his hands with his brow in a thoughtful crease. She wanted to tell him everything right then, profess every thought that had been running rampant through her head during that first night and how he had helped her find a piece of herself she had once believed would remain permanently dormant.

Instead, all she allowed to leave her lips was a quiet "Me too."

The silence that filtered into the car was awkward this time and he cleared his throat beside her, picked up the conversation she had figured they'd decided to drop.

"I did tell my daughter about it though, about you."

She nearly slammed on the brake.

"You told your _daughter_ about us having sex in an alley?" she exclaimed, reaching over to twist his ear and making the car swerve on the empty road. "What kind of parent are you, what kind of man-"

He dodged her fingers and raised a mollifying hand to quiet her accusations. "I told her the fabricated, PG version," he defended before she could put them in a ditch. "You know - met a girl at a party, love at first sight, the one that got away?"

She shook her head, pressing harder on the accelerator. "I wish you would stop saying things like that."

"She was asking me about why I've stayed with Gina if she didn't make me happy and then wanted to know if there had ever been anyone who ever _had_ made me happy. I was just… I was trying to show her that there's still magic to be found in others," he explained and she felt her vexation lessen, the winding tension in her shoulders loosen. "I don't want her to think that love equals the kind of relationship I had with Gina, or worse, her mother," he said with a dramatic shudder and she smothered the smirk toying with her lips.

"I read online that Meredith was quite the character," she stated, making an attempt to change the subject.

He lifted a hand to his chest. "You googled me?"

"Duh. Research is part of the job."

"I feel so violated. But I'll let it slide."

"Because you secretly like it."

"Only when you do it."

She cut a glance to him, saw him watching her with a sly smile, and she couldn't help it, she laughed.

* * *

Kate diverted off the main highway and onto a gravel road. It was dark and he couldn't study his surroundings as he would have liked, but the sheer amount of trees that lined the road gave him a sense of security, as if their branches could shield them from the dangers of the outside world. After fifteen minutes, they encountered a wide stretch of land that was home to a vast expanse of woods, a fishing lake that shimmered with the rising light of the moon, and what appeared to be a cabin shrouded in the midst of it all.

Kate parked the rented suburban in the middle of a cluster of trees and bushes off the side of the driveway. When she slipped out of the car, she began to work at maneuvering a few of the more flexible branches around the vehicle and he got out to help her. It didn't camouflage much, but it was generally safer than parking out in the open of the gravel driveway and it made the car look less noticeable, abandoned. Just like the rest of the property.

"What is this place?" he asked her once they had retrieved their bags from the trunk of the SUV.

She didn't answer and he followed closely in the darkness as she led him up the driveway's path, to the front porch steps, where she located a key in a hanging potted plant.

"It was my dad's," she murmured, barely audible as she unlocked the door, and the past tense of her words immediately caused his heart to begin a steady descent to his stomach.

Kate ushered him inside and wasted no time in locking the door behind him. She used the glow of her phone to guide herself into the living room, where she switched a lamp on, and then an overhead light in the modest kitchen, casting a dim illumination throughout the space.

Castle kept his gaze on her face, watched the way her mouth fell into a tight frown and her eyes turned a dull amber as they assessed the inside of the cabin in a periodic sweep. Her entire posture changed, the line of her body growing more rigid the longer she looked around.

This place brought her pain.

"I'll show you around in the morning," she said, her eyes roaming to the living room – the sliding glass doors along the far wall, the fireplace across from the couch, the pictures on the coffee table in the middle of the room.

He nodded and placed his bag at his feet because she had yet to direct him to where he would be sleeping. She seemed to be deciding something as she stood unmoving in the living room, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and her eyebrows drawn together in thought. He didn't want to disturb her, but he felt like an intruder just standing there.

"Uh, well-"

"It was my mother."

He stilled. The whispered words echoed through the silence of the secluded cabin and made his spine stiffen. She opened her mouth to continue and part of him wanted to stop her, to tell her he didn't need to know, but he said nothing because he did, he _craved_ to know everything about her, and he felt like an utterly selfish bastard for it.

"I was nineteen. We were supposed to go to dinner - my mom, my dad, and I. But she never showed. I didn't think anything of it at first. She tended to overwork."

She stepped forward and dropped her duffel bag onto the couch, curled her fingers over the worn fabric once her hands were free, used the furniture as an anchor while she told a story he wished he had never asked for.

"A cop was waiting for us when we got home," she continued, clearing her throat to fight the way it closed up around the words. "She had been stabbed."

Kate's throat bobbed as she swallowed, a correlation of unshed tears glittered in her eyes, but the line of her mouth was strict, her eyes fierce even through the rebellion of moisture.

"They attributed it to gang violence, but I never believed it. After some investigation, years, I learned someone hired a man to kill her. I thought maybe if I found a way into their world…"

She paused, her fingers clenching hard around the couch, the skin covering her knuckles blanching ivory, and it took every ounce of control he possessed not to go to her, to wrap her in his arms and hold her until the defeated look left her face, the broken anguish left her eyes. All he allowed himself was an inch of a step closer to her stone-like figure.

"It's been three years," she rasped, shaking her head. "I have nothing."

There was nothing to say to that.

"My dad took her death hard, started drinking heavily. I lost him about four years ago when I was still a detective." She dug her teeth into her bottom lip and he followed her gaze to a picture of an older man with his arm around a younger version of the woman standing before him. "I'd always been hesitant to leave the NYPD, but after he died… I had nothing left to lose. I still have nothing."

Fuck, he couldn't handle this.

He moved to stand beside her and brushed a tentative hand between the wings of her shoulder blades, bringing her back to the present she had momentarily abandoned to bring him the darkness of her past.

"Debt paid in full?" she asked with a weary quirk of her lips, but the tears were still in her eyes and he gave in. He bundled her snugly in his arms and she let him, her body melting into his embrace, her arms locking around his back.

She released a ragged breath against his clavicle, a broken piece of a sob she refused to let free. "I let her down. I let them both down."

"No, no, you didn't," he argued fervently, strengthening his grip on her and moving a hand to her nape, brushing his thumb over the fine hairs at the base of her skull. "No, Kate. You could never let them down."

She buried her face deeper into his chest, trying to quell the tears and the strangled sounds he could hear rallying in her throat. Her nails snared in his shirt and she fisted her hands at his waist.

"You'll find whoever did this. I know you will."

She reluctantly lifted her head, stared up at him with unfathomably dark eyes that rivaled the night sky. Her bottom lip quivered and he cupped her chin in his fingers, swept his thumb over the trembling flesh.

"Is there a guest bedroom?"

She inclined her head towards the hallway. "Yeah."

"Should I stay there for the night?"

"Yeah," she murmured, walking him backwards, in the opposite direction of the hallway, towards a closed door just off the living room. She reached around to turn the knob before his back could hit the hardwood.

"Am I staying in the guest room, Kate?"

She slanted her mouth over his, breathed her answer into his lungs as she kicked the door shut and guided him towards the bed that rested in the middle of the room.

"No."


	14. Chapter 14

The late morning sunlight revealed a room he hadn't had the chance to learn in the dark. Wood paneling lined the walls that held a few watercolor paintings and a square window to the side that looked out onto a riot of brilliant green and a portion of glimmering blue that belonged to the lake. A writing desk resided in the corner of the room with a lamp on its corner, but it lacked a chair companion. Otherwise, the room seemed unlived in, empty.

When he sat up on the full sized mattress that was firmer than he was used to, he saw he was wrapped in a pale blue bedspread and white sheets patterned with tiny lilac flowers. The visual details all aided in conjuring up imaginary memories of a young Kate Beckett growing and thriving here. He smiled sadly at the thought.

Speaking of Kate Beckett, she was not in the bed with him any longer. But when he glanced out the window, he could see her in faded jean shorts and an oversized sweatshirt, walking a dirt path in a pair of worn, green Converse sneakers. Clothes she must have kept here at the cabin, he figured.

Castle watched her for a while, studied her absorbing solitude from the bark of trees her fingers brushed over and the grass her feet flirted with. Despite the heartache this place brought her, she seemed free here.

He dressed once he saw that she was making her way back to the cabin. In the time it took him to pull his t-shirt over his eyes, she was in the doorway to the bedroom, studying him with a raised eyebrow.

"I could feel you watching me." She nodded her head towards the window, but he merely shrugged in response.

"You fascinate me, Agent Beckett," he grinned, rising from the bed and brushing past her for the kitchen, where he was sure he had smelt brewing coffee.

But she caught his bicep, her palm warm on his skin. "It's Kate, at least - while we're here, okay?"

She seemed more vulnerable at her father's cabin too, less guarded and not so adamant that he stay away from her. It was almost as if she was finally conspiring with the part of her that _wanted _this, her heart instead of her head, and he ducked forward, swept his lips over hers in brief kiss that made her hand tighten on his arm.

"You look beautiful this morning, Kate," he exhaled against her mouth, lifting a hand to caress her face, trailing his thumb over the paper thin skin beneath her eye out of habit. Shit, they had habits.

She smiled softly as her fingers trickled down the inside of his arm to twine with his and lead him into the kitchen.

* * *

Kate stabbed the nail of her thumb into the aging wood of the table, scratched at the old marks and stains marring the well-used piece of furniture that now only gathered dust. Castle was watching her – when was he not? – but he had yet to begin one of his hourly interrogations.

They were sitting side by side at the table her dad had made so many years ago, during one of the summers when she was still a little girl and they came to the cabin every single year out of tradition and love for the woods. She could still remember sitting on the kitchen floor next to his beaten up toolbox, watching from a few feet away as her father had worked with the wood, handing him the tools he requested and bringing him the glass of orange juice her mother poured for him when he needed a break. She remembered the pride she had felt when he had grinned at the finished product and thanked her for her help.

_I'd be lost without ya, Katie._

"Would you have followed through if it had been real?"

She furrowed her brow at Castle over the rim of her coffee mug, the one her dad had always used in the past.

They had just finished breakfast, if she could call stale toast and some berries she had found outside an actual breakfast. She really needed to go to the corner store a few miles out and get them some actual food.

"If what had been real?"

"Your job as a hit woman," he clarified and she felt an involuntary clamor threaten to climb her spine and make her shudder. She would be lying if she claimed she had never considered the lifestyle, the real one without the badge, and the thought of actually being hired to kill him made her stomach churn.

Kate placed her cup on the countertop they were sharing, but still circled the warm ceramic in her fingers. "I approach each assignment as if it were real. So no, I likely would never have harmed you."

"Why?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, but his gaze was unwavering. He wanted her to say it, admit something that would cross the line into _more_, but she refused.

"Because I get under your skin in all the best ways?" he finally asked with the signature spark in his gleaming blue irises.

She rolled her eyes.

"You get under my skin all right," she muttered, herding the crumbs on his plate with her fingernail until they formed a tiny pile in the middle.

"Have you ever wanted to… follow through? With orders to kill someone?"

There was caution in the question, he knew he was toeing the boundaries of her comfort zone, and she sighed, perched her chin on her folded hands.

"There have been times where I understood _why_ someone would want another person dead, but it's not their decision to take another person's life. It's not mine either. I am not judge, jury, or executioner, Castle. No one should be allowed that power."

Castle nodded, mimicking her and bridging his fingers underneath his chin.

"So your job is to protect those you're hired to kill while your people take care of the person who wants them dead," he summarized.

"Essentially. It's never gone quite like this though," she said, hiding a small smile.

"Do you think it was fate?"

She glanced up, saw him watching her inquisitively. "I don't really believe in fate."

"How else can you explain finding each other again? The odds of it were astronomical," he insisted, so invested in his reasoning, in his belief that they were destined to meet again.

He glared at her when she began humming the melody to the childhood theme of _It's a Small World._

"What time is it?"

She glanced to her father's watch on her wrist. "Almost noon. You want to go for a walk? Reception isn't good here and you could call Alexis from the trail."

Castle brightened at the idea and straightened from his hunched position over the table to deposit his plate in the sink.

She offered him her phone after they had strolled through the thicker part of the forest and were closer to the edge of her father's property where there was a clearing, a meadow of sorts.

"It's beautiful here," he murmured, the phone in his hand but his eyes roving over the colorful expanse of land, the swaying grass in the light breeze, the sparse congregations of purple wild flowers blooming across the ground.

"I recently started coming out here after I would finish an assignment, to regain perspective on things," she explained, following a vibrant red cardinal overhead with her gaze as it flew from tree to tree. "It's peaceful."

"Do you ever swim in the lake?" he asked and she sighed at the familiar sadness swirling in her chest, not having indulged in the cool waters in years, but she nodded. "We should do that. Together. Swimming."

She pressed her lips together to conceal a smile. "You just want me to wear that bikini again."

Castle turned to her affronted and then placed a hand on her shoulder. "If you are not comfortable in that swimsuit, you can totally skinny dip. I promise I won't mind."

She pondered his idea with false interest, but then inclined her head towards him, bit her lip as she shifted her gaze from his eyes to his mouth.

"I will if you will."

"Is that a promise?" His eyes were dancing with eager excitement and she shoved at his shoulder.

"Call your daughter," she insisted, walking away to give him some privacy.

Castle kept the call short, per her request, because one could never be too careful even with a burner cell. When he joined her where she waited on the grassy dirt path a few feet away, the excitement from earlier was gone.

"How is she?"

"Doesn't suspect anything," he murmured, and she could see that he not only felt guilty about lying to his daughter, but that he missed her, and Kate was the one keeping him away from her.

"That's not what I asked," she pointed out, keeping it light, but it was as if he barely heard her.

"She's fine," he mumbled.

"My team will find Gina in no time," Kate tried to reassure him, brushing her knuckles across his as they walked. "You could be back home by the end of the day."

Castle tried to offer her a smile for the attempt, but the frown remained carved into his lips as he bypassed the front porch, travelling around the side of the house, towards the back, where the lake stretched on for miles. He sat down on the edge of the wooden dock, his legs dangling off the side and his toes submerged in the water.

Kate followed after him, hesitated before she raked her fingers through his hair when she was standing beside his slumped figure. An apology formed on her lips, but she bit it back. A heartfelt 'sorry' wouldn't make him feel better, so she swallowed the useless word down, thought up a new tactic.

Standing under the strengthening rays of sunlight, Kate stripped her sweatshirt off, dropped the material on the dock and allowed her shorts to follow. Castle gaped at her, watching the quick removal of clothing in shock, but she dove into the water before he could comment.

She came up for air smiling, feeling the squelch of mud beneath her toes and the underwater weeds tickling at her shins.

"Coming in, Rick?" she teased, tipping her head backwards in the cool water and reveling in the contrasting warmth of sunlight glowing overhead.

She ducked under the surface again, releasing air through her nostrils and prying her eyes open to watch the bubbles float to the top. When she arose again, Castle was gloriously naked and taking steps backwards on the dock.

She squealed – god, who _was_ she? – when he did a running jump into the water, drenching her as he landed only a few inches from her wading figure. Water droplets rained from his hair as he shook his head, renewed delight lacing along the lines of his face.

"This water is freezing," he gasped, glancing back to the dock, but Kate stole his hands before he could consider abandoning the chill of the lake for the warmth of the land. She guided him farther out, where the water lapped at her throat and crashed against the broad wall of his chest.

She splashed him when she noticed his eyes on her chest, studying her figure through the swaying film of the water. He slung an armful of water back at her and ducked before she could return fire, disappearing beneath the surface.

She kicked away when she felt his fingers sweep her legs, but wasn't quick enough to escape him as he pulled her under. A smile that felt more foreign than familiar claimed her lips as his arms encircled her beneath the surface, a triumphant grin spreading across his own mouth, relishing in his great accomplishment of dragging her under the water with him.

She pinched his shoulder and he propelled them upwards.

"Still cold, Castle?" she chuckled, slithering out of his arms and treading water in a circle around him.

He shrugged as he followed her movements with his gaze. "Maybe a little, going to warm me up, Beckett?"

She skimmed her fingers down his abs when he caught her around the waist, tugged her body to his once more, and watched as goosebumps that had nothing to do with the water temperature scattered along his arms.

Kate's hands clutched the slippery slopes of his shoulders as she hoisted upwards and curled her legs around his waist. She was buoyant in his arms, practically weightless, and his hands remained at her thighs for only a moment before wandering up her bowed spine to tangle in her dripping hair.

They floated contently for a moment, peacefully.

"I could love you, Kate," he murmured, so quiet she almost didn't catch the words above the soft sounds of the water.

She didn't stiffen this time, didn't push him away or linger on the cold spread of dread that constricted her insides. She dipped her mouth to his instead, tasted the lake on his lips and sunlight on his tongue when it touched hers. She locked her arms around his neck, held onto him as their swaying bodies fell into a dance that was growing all too familiar.

He could love her.

She feared she could love him back.


	15. Chapter 15

They were lying naked on the dock, skins drying under the sunshine. She had her eyes closed in relaxation, but could feel when Castle's head turned and his gaze fell upon her, roaming lazily before settling on her face.

"I have a house in the Hamptons, you know."

She arched an eyebrow at the statement without opening her eyes.

"Is this information supposed to impress me?"

"Yes, but I figured it wouldn't," he huffed and she smirked as she listened to him shift beside her, rolling from his back to his stomach, propping himself up on his elbows. "The point I was actually going for was that I think you would like it there. It's right on the ocean with a secluded pool and miles of private property. Most relaxing place I can think of."

"Are you inviting me to the Hamptons with you?" she sighed, cracking an eye open to see his face only inches from hers.

He shrugged. "I was merely discussing one of my favorite personal vacation spots."

"You enjoy it more than the land you own on the moon?" she quipped with a lazy smile and his lips quirked to match before turning down instead.

"How did you…" His eyes shuttered closed before he lifted on his hands to rise from beside her. "Almost forgot, you know all about me," he mumbled, snatching his clothes from the wooden boards of the dock and stalking away from her.

Kate exhaled through her nose before sitting up to retrieve her clothing as well, slipping the sweatshirt on and stepping into her shorts before jogging after him.

"You have every right to resent me for it, but I only know what Gina told me and what the internet offered me," she explained as she settled into a quick pace to keep up with his long strides towards the cabin. "That doesn't mean I know the real you."

"But you do by now, don't you?" he sighed, stopping abruptly in front of her and turning just in time for her to smack into his chest.

She took a step back before his arms could rise around her, but his fists were clenched resolutely at his sides.

"What are you talking about?"

Rick raked a hand through his hair and diverted his eyes in the direction of the meadow they had spent a piece of the late morning by.

"I already trust you, when I really don't think I should, and I already feel like…" He shook his head, but she wasn't following him, not exactly, and she clutched softly at one of his wrists.

"Castle?"

"You said yourself that I put on an act for fans. I do for a lot of people, it comes with the job, but I don't feel that way with you," he admitted without looking at her.

She tilted her head to the side in confusion. "Why is that a bad thing?"

"Because you don't want me, Kate," he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, shaking off her hand from his wrist and laughing bitterly to himself, a sound that made her heart ache in a way it hadn't in a long while. "And I understand, I can even respect it, but I still want you and that makes this all the more difficult."

His eyes finally returned to her, the sad blue of the irises resting on her only for a moment before he turned to walk away, pulling his t-shirt on over his head as he followed the dirt path back into the woods.

Kate stood motionless for a second before jerking forward and tripping after him.

"Castle," she called, but he walked on without acknowledging her. "Rick-"

"Give me a second alone," he threw over his shoulder. "Don't worry, Agent Beckett, I won't go far."

* * *

Castle plopped down in the middle of the gorgeous meadow she had revealed to him only a couple of hours ago, plucked one of the small, purple flowers from the grass and twirled the dainty little plant between his thumb and forefinger.

He was such an idiot. They had been having a good day, a really good day, so much so that it had almost taken his mind off of the real reason they were here in the first place, and then he'd had to go and screw everything up with his damn _feelings._

So what if she didn't intend to carry out any sort of relationship or involvement with him once this ordeal was over with? Had he not decided mere days ago that he was not fit for love anyway? He should be focusing on his daughter, planning to devote his life to her and his writing alone once he returned home, but the problem with this logic was that he already knew Kate Beckett would plague his thoughts long after he was back safely in a life of normality.

She would haunt his dreams and seep into his writing. He already had a new story, a new character, brewing in his mind – a smart, savvy undercover agent who could challenge Derrick Storm with her brains and fluster him with her beauty.

She felt different from other women, like she could be more than just a one night stand or temporary fling; she felt like she could last. She was fierce and passionate, but so alone. So broken and damaged and he didn't expect to heal her wounds, to fix her, but he longed to be there for her, to stand with her through the dark days, hold her through the harsh memories of her past as he had last night, and show her not everyone she cared about would leave in the form of death. He longed for the chance to love her. And maybe she could show him that there was someone who could want him for more than his money or his fame, that she could love him back for simply being himself.

They could be so good for each other, but she had made it clear that _more _would likely not be on the horizon for them. He wanted to accept it, he just didn't know how.

"I do a lot of acting myself," she said from behind him and he startled, not hearing her creep up on him. Though, he really shouldn't be surprised. She was an FBI agent who lived under the façade of an assassin after all.

Kate sat down next to him, crossing her legs beneath her and digging her elbows into her knees.

"Not with you though, not after you figured out who I really was."

"You didn't want me to figure it out," he mumbled, steadfastly keeping his eyes on the little flower still trapped between his fingertips.

He listened to her sigh long and heavy. "Maybe I did," she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. "I remembered you the moment I saw the photo Gina gave me. I knew there was a risk you would recognize me and I should have informed Rachel that I was compromised right away instead of getting on a plane to LA."

"So why didn't you?" he asked, sparing a sideways glance at her profile to see her face was cradled in her palms and her eyebrows were knit in frustration.

"I - I might have wanted to see you," she confessed, chewing on her lower lip and lifting her shoulder in a weak shrug. "And I thought I could protect you, which I was obviously wrong about."

He didn't want to reassure her, he wanted to be mad at her, but he was already softening from her admission of wanting to see him and he spoke before his brain to mouth filter could kick in.

"You're protecting me right now," he pointed out, but she scoffed.

"By having sex with you in a lake?"

"You… you were trying to make me feel better," he concluded, the words sour on his tongue, but Kate reached for him, placing her fingers on his cheek and turning his face towards her.

"Castle, every time we've slept together, it's because it's what I've wanted. Not just for your benefit," she informed him in a serious tone but with a small tug of a smile at the corner of her lips. "The night we first met, I - I did feel the connection you mentioned. I still feel it and I try not to want it, want you, but I do. So drop the unrequited feelings bullshit."

He growled and swatted her hand from his face, but she persisted, crawled into his lap and forced him to look at her.

"You want me to tell you that we have a chance at something real, and – and I want to tell you we do," she whispered the confession, keeping her gaze on the distraction of her fingers as they picked at the collar of his shirt. "But it scares me."

He stared at her in slight confusion, but cupped the cutting edge of her jaw in his hand, willed her to look at him. "Being with me?"

She hesitated, but nodded slowly. "Caring about you, dragging you into my lifestyle. I want you happy, Castle, and I want you safe. And you would never be safe with me."

Her words, her fears - they all made sense, they did, but he was so engrossed in the fact that she seemed to actually want him back. That her feelings could potentially be just as substantial as his. They had made it this far, survived the threat on his life and managed to find peace in one another despite the circumstances - could they really not continue to beat the odds together in the real world, outside the confines of a mission?

"That doesn't change how I feel about you, the fact that you can make me happy, Kate."

She looked up at him with desolate eyes that glittered with unexpected tears.

"Your daughter," she rasped. "Alexis comes first for you, as she should, and the fact that being with me could risk taking you away from her - I know what it feels like and I can't, Rick."

And oh, there was no argument he could even fathom using against that, against the pain she knew all too well and was striving to protect his daughter from. His chest was beginning to ache with the reality of her reasoning, the truth it held.

Kate moved to rise from his lap, but he slid his hands down the bow of her spine, coiled his arms around her back and held her tight against his chest even as she lowered her cheek to rest on his shoulder. No intent to leave him alone, not yet.

"Just enjoy the time we have for now, okay?" she whispered, combing her fingers through his hair, gently scraping his scalp with her nails, but he couldn't ignore the sorrow in her voice, the mourning that had already begun.

He tried to nod, but all he could manage was an unsteady jerk of his head. The flower that had remained crushed between his fingertips fluttered to the ground.

There had to be a way. There just had to be a way for her to be a part of his life.


	16. Chapter 16

He hadn't meant to spend what could ultimately be his last day with her writing, but the urge to create pieces of her story, to bring this new character to life, had his fingertips tingling.

Kate had retrieved a pen and black notebook from the desk in the bedroom for him as soon as he had asked for writing materials, but when the book was placed in front of him and he flipped open the first page, he saw that half of it was filled.

Kate's hand slammed down over the stained white paper, concealing the messy scrawl that filled a number of pages from top to bottom.

"I forgot I'd written in this one," she murmured, moving to steal it away, but Castle's fingers held to the edge of the notebook.

"What'd you write about?"

Her eyes darkened, defensive and deadly, and she snatched the book back from him, cradled it protectively against her chest.

"None of your business."

"Are secrets really necessary, Kate?" he tried with a quirked eyebrow and a teasing smile, but she didn't budge.

"It's not - it isn't secrets." Her throat bobbed and her nails cut into the thin cover of the notebook. "It's just - my therapist at the time made me keep a journal. I can't even read what's in here, so please just - respect my privacy and leave it alone."

She turned on her heel, striding back into her bedroom, and Castle rose from his seat at the table, but decided not to follow her. She returned with a yellow legal pad instead, handed it over without meeting his eyes. He took the stack of paper, placed it on the table, but caught her by the biceps before she could disappear.

"I'm sorry." He smoothed his hands down to cup her elbows, giving her the chance to move away if it was what she wanted.

She sighed, allowed her body to fall stiffly against his for just a moment. "I know, Castle, but don't be. It's fine."

Rick released her and she didn't hesitate in using her freedom to drift away from him.

"What are you itching to write about?" she asked out of what sounded like good natured curiosity as she headed into the kitchen, but he knew it was simply a way to steer him towards distraction. Already so quick to push him away, to distance herself before he was even gone.

"New character," he murmured, already drawing up an outline on the yellow paper.

"Oh? What about Derrick Storm?"

"I'm sick of Storm," he sighed. "He's not fun to write anymore. I already have the next book planned out and I think it'll be his last."

He felt her go still. "You're going to kill him off?"

"You're a fan all of the sudden?" he chuckled, continuing on with his outline, jotting down details about his newest protagonist. His new character needed a name, a badass name worthy of a hot cop, but it was hard to think when his muse was staring at him.

"I read the first book while I was… watching over you."

His eyebrows hitched and Rick glanced over to see her quickly divert her gaze the moment she noticed his attention on her. He was tempted to tease her, to needle her about her thoughts on his work, but he had yet been able to follow her advice, to forget the future and enjoy what little time he had left with her. Instead, he continued to carry the heavy weight of impending loss and lingering rejection on his shoulders.

"So," she murmured, pretending not to notice the obvious tension now rippling from his hunched figure. "Tell me about your new character."

"You inspired her," he admitted, shrugging those burdened shoulders. She had gone still again, only this time, her face had blanched and her mouth formed a tight line.

Never a good sign.

"Rick, I don't think-"

"It won't give any hints to your identity, or your job, don't worry."

"No," she huffed, striding over to the dining room table. "It's not that. I just think there's so many better things, better characters, for you to write about. Why waste your time on me?"

Castle clenched his fingers around the pen. "So, I can't have you in real life or on paper then," he muttered, refusing to look at her anymore but sensing the way she deflated against the back of the chair next to the one he currently occupied.

"That's not what I meant," she argued softly, calmly. "Just – don't you think it would be easier to distance yourself from all of this, rather than keep it close?"

"Not all of us are as great as compartmentalizing as you are, Beckett," he snapped, giving up on any hope of continuing his impromptu outline. "Forgetting about all of this might be easy for you, but-"

"Stop it," she growled, snatching the pen from his hand and forcing him to face her, glare up at her. "Don't treat me like I'm some cold, heartless bitch, like I don't care."

"I thought that's what you wanted," he fired back, staring into the flaring gold of her eyes. He watched her swallow and straighten, shuffle away from him. He should have let it be, left the bitter words to lie, but he was feeling brave. Or maybe he just had a death wish. "How convenient that you'll never have to see me again after this."

Kate spun on her heel, her bottom lip stabbed beneath her teeth, trying not play into his trap for an argument.

"Castle," she grinded out. "I don't want to fight about this."

"Not fighting," he stated simply. "Listing facts."

He rose from his chair, took a few daring steps towards her until he was only inches away.

"The truth of the matter is that you could be happy, Kate. You _deserve_ to be happy, but you're afraid. So you hide in your job and your fake identities, in your parents' deaths, but you don't want to hide from me."

Her nostrils flared and her knuckles shined as they clenched at her sides. She was done restraining herself; she was on the edge of furious now and she was about to let him have it.

"You pompous, arrogant-"

"I heard your partner offer you backup, I'm sure she could have sent a different agent to watch after me altogether, but you insisted you had it under control." He stepped forward, she took a step back. "You don't have it under control at all, do you, Kate?"

"I'm just trying to keep you safe!" she growled, shoving at his chest when he ventured too close, but he caught her by the elbows, held her against the wall even as she struggled. She could push out of his grasp if she wanted to. He knew for a fact she was trained to fight her way out of an opponent's grasp, but she was barely trying. "You don't mean anything, you don't-"

He sealed his mouth over hers, staunched the lies pouring out with the rough clash of his teeth, and she moaned, long and needy and exhausted.

"You're ruining everything, ruining me," she gasped, curling a leg around his thigh and jerking him closer.

He caught her by the knee, pinned her hips to the wall, and pressed his forehead into hers. She growled, undulating her confined hips, making his teeth clench at the instinctive flare of arousal she evoked so easily, but he cupped the sharp line of her jaw in his palm, forced her to look at him.

"It wasn't supposed to go like this," she choked.

Tears were swimming in her eyes, tumbling down her cheeks, and suddenly all of his confidence vanished. He didn't want - he hadn't meant to make her _cry_. He released her immediately, attempted to take a step back.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Stop apologizing," she choked around the quiver in her throat, reining him back in by the grip she still had on his shirt. "You're always apologizing to me, to everyone, and you shouldn't be. You deserve to be angry." She leaned into the wall of his chest, resting her forehead to his clavicle. But he wasn't angry, not exactly, not with her. Not anymore.

His stomach growled then, breaking the brief silence, and she laughed, muffled it with his shirt, and he exhaled in relief, smoothed his hands down the curve of her spine.

"I need to go to the store, get some food before you waste away," she sighed, but he held her tighter.

They were both quiet for a while until eventually she lifted her head, stared up at him with a thoughtful expression.

"I wish I would have said yes to dinner that night."

His heart fluttered at her words. The memory of that night grew clearer with each day spent with her - their conversation at the bar and the way her laugh had drawn him in all too quickly, their time on the dance floor, how she had seduced him without speaking a word, and the bittersweet feeling of watching her walk away, leaving him alone in a dirty alley, left to wonder what the sudden unfolding of emptiness in his chest had meant.

"I would have taken you to my favorite place, this little hole in the wall Italian restaurant I've only ever taken Alexis to," he mused, watching her eyes shimmer with soft delight. "We would have bypassed small talk pretty quickly, you would have told me about your mother, not because you trusted me with it, not just yet, but because you thought it would scare me off," he murmured, knowing he was correct when her lashes lowered to hide her gaze. "But I would have listened to you, maybe held your hand if you would have let me. Then I would have made a stupid joke, tried to get you to smile again." Her lips quirked at that. "And I would have promised to be there for you, be whatever you need. And it probably would have freaked you out."

She huffed a laugh, knocked her forehead into his chin to hide from his gaze. He didn't mind, allowing one of his hands to travel up her vertebrae to cup her nape, holding her there.

"It still would have been a nice dinner. You'd let me walk you home, kiss you goodnight, but nothing more, because even though we'd already taken the next step, this was only our first date and the next time we had sex, it was going to be so much more than quick and meaningless."

He listened to her hum, felt one of her hands mimic his, curling around the back of his neck. "Then what?"

Warmth unfurled in his chest and Castle stroked his thumb along the base of her skull, circling at that sensitive spot behind her ear to feel the reflexive cant of her body further into his.

"You wouldn't have called me for like a week, maybe more, because like I said, I totally freaked you out." She grunted, but he could feel her smile against his collarbone. "Eventually I would have just shown up at your apartment again."

"Because you're too persistent for your own good," she muttered and he nodded, feathered his lips over the top of her head.

"Yep, and you would have been unable to resist me, just as you are now, and you would have let me inside, shared the dinner and wine I brought over."

She dislodged her forehead from his jaw, lifted her face, her gaze. "And then I would have taken you to bed, kept you awake all night."

"I would have had to leave the next morning, while you were sleeping, so I could see Alexis off to school."

"But you would have come back."

"I would have come back," he confirmed, squeezing gently at the smooth skin of her nape. "While Alexis was in school. I would have made you pancakes."

She smirked, stared up at him with curiosity lacing along her lips. "Why pancakes?"

"Edible way of saying 'thank you _so_ much for last night'."

"You owe me a lot of pancakes, Richard Castle."

The laugh rumbled through his chest, shook them both, and he wished she would never stop smiling at him like she was in that moment.

"I wish we could have had that," she sighed, so mournful, stroking her fingers through the thickening stubble still peppering his jaw because he hadn't remembered to shave since Los Angeles.

"We still can," he tried, knowing it was likely the best way to wipe the smile clean from her face, but the curve of her lips didn't disappear, only dimmed. "It wouldn't be easy, but we could make it work."

Her eyes drifted up from his lips, the usual hazel a beautiful kaleidoscope of greens and browns and gold in the afternoon light. For a second, he swore she believed him.

But then her eyes fell away.

"I need to go to the store."

And Kate was gone, Agent Beckett back in place.

"Can you get ice cream?"

The grin spread across her face and she smeared her lips across his in a chaste kiss before breaking free from the circle of his arms.

"Let me guess, chocolate?"

"Duh, Beckett."

She began to tug on her shoes, but apprehension was creating a visible line of tension up her spine.

"I hate to leave you alone," she murmured, eyes roving over the interior of the cabin as if gauging its chances of surviving an attack.

"I'll be fine, Kate."

She disappeared into the bedroom for a second before returning with a gun in her hand. Castle's eyebrows hitched upwards.

"Just in case," she said, placing the gun on the dining room table. "But if anyone comes, the first thing you do is run, use the woods as a cover and make your way to the street, but stay hidden until you see me coming. I'll go slow so I can-"

"I doubt anything will happen in the half hour it takes for you to go to the store and back," he assured her, but she still looked pensive.

"Here, keep this on you too." She held out her phone to him, but he hesitated.

"That's your only form of communication."

"Like you said, it's just half an hour. It'll make me feel better knowing you have access to a phone," she insisted, returning to stand in front of him and holding the burner cell between them.

He sighed but took the device, slipped it into his pocket.

"Thank you," she murmured, squeezing his forearm, but she seemed distracted as she stared up at him, as if she was searching his face for some kind of evidence.

"Kate?"

She shook her head, trailed her fingers over his ears before she kissed him one last time and started for the door.

"I just don't understand how anyone could want you dead."


	17. Chapter 17

Kate had tried not to go abnormally fast in the convenient store on the side of the highway twenty miles out. Yes, she was in a hurry, the thought of him alone and unprotected gnawing at her guts with every passing second, but she didn't need to draw attention to herself either. The owner recognized her, much to her chagrin, but after an overused condolence for the loss of her father, he let her pay for her small haul of food and wished her a nice time at the cabin.

She hated that everyone in the area knew of her whereabouts when she came to stay, that all of her father's old buddies still remembered her after all these years and called out to her in the open. Maybe she was just paranoid, but she had a long list of enemies nowadays, and if anyone were to ever find out her true identity, if they ever came here, all they would have to do is ask around and they'd locate her with little trouble.

She went a steady twenty miles over the speed limit on her drive back, eyes darting to the rearview mirror every thirty seconds, but when she slowed at the road that would lead her back to the safe haven of the cabin, she scanned the brush and saw no sign of Castle.

Kate took a deep breath, allowed the relief to spread and flow through her body. She was probably overreacting, he was likely right where she had left him at the dining room table, filling the legal pad she had found for him earlier, and her lips slipped into a smile at that. She hadn't had the chance to experience the passion he held for writing firsthand since this entire ordeal had begun, but she had caught a glimpse of it today when he had requested a paper and a pen, his fingers twitching with the urge to divulge the story stirring inside him.

A strange flicker of excitement flared in her chest. He was probably fine, filling pages with words about a character she still failed to approve of but couldn't deny him right to either, and she found herself eager to spend an evening tucked away in the cabin with him and his words, as well as an actual meal. It almost felt like... like this could be a trial run for a future she couldn't have but already fiercely wanted.

Kate pulled into the driveway exactly twenty-five minutes after pulling out of it, forgoing the extra safety measure of working the car into the slot of trees as she had last night in favor of hastening her return to him. Just to ensure he was okay. That was all.

"Hey, Castle," she called the moment she walked through the door, striding into the kitchen and setting the grocery bags on the counter near the sink. "I brought dinner. Along with that tub of ice cream you mentioned, if you're still up for it," she added with a growing grin on her lips, but it quickly began to fade when she received no response.

He wouldn't greet her with silence.

"Castle?"

Still no answer. And as she scanned the cabin, she saw no sign of him at the dining room table, no hint of his presence from her bedroom or the bathroom off the hall. She glanced towards the sliding door into the backyard with a flicker of hope, gnawing desperation, but she had a clear view of the dock from here and he wasn't out there either.

He was gone.

Shit, she had been right. He wasn't fine, he wasn't even _here._

Kate stepped away from the kitchen, her hand automatically drifting to her hip, where her service piece would be if she had it on her, and she cursed herself for leaving it to Castle in case of emergency.

A hint of movement in her peripheral caught her attention and hope blazed wild in her chest, ready to persuade her galloping heart into a steady rhythm.

"Rick?"

"If you know him at all, you should know that he's always up for ice cream."

Kate spun towards the entry only to be met with Gina Cowell in the cabin's doorway, a gun in her hand and a practiced smile stretched across her lips. But it wasn't Beckett's Glock in her hand and Kate felt a small flutter of relief amidst the bubbling panic.

She hadn't found him. Not yet.

"Ms. Cowell," Kate greeted, taking a cautious step closer to the other woman. "Nice of you to drop by."

"Cut the bullshit, Agent Beckett." Kate squared her jaw at the use of her profession title, saw the satisfaction it elicited in Gina to have secret knowledge in her hands. "You're not so great at what you do, by the way. If you were, you would have known you were being watched, listened to, this entire time."

She wanted to curse, to punch her fist through the wall, or at least have the luxury of sulking in disappointment or uttering the demand of _how?_ She had failed this entire mission, she had failed him, and now her only chance of getting Castle out of this predicament alive was getting the gun from Gina's grasp.

Kate shrugged. "How do you know I wasn't aware the entire time? How do you know I didn't lure you here on purpose?"

Gina wavered for only a moment before donning a smirk that was far too smug.

"You wouldn't lure me to a secluded cabin in the woods, where you and my husband are all alone with no backup to save you. And I highly doubt you would have slept with him in his hotel room if you had known I'd placed a listening device in his suitcase." Beckett paled, couldn't help it, and felt her insides begin to knot at the idea of Gina hearing every single thing they had said, everything they had _done_ in his hotel room. "You're smart, Agent Beckett, and I'd truly hoped you wouldn't let me down, but I couldn't help taking precaution. I'm sure you understand."

Gina winked at her, flexed her slim fingers around the gun.

"I'm good at what I do, how do you know I don't have backup nearby?" Beckett mused, but Castle's soon to be ex-wife still wasn't buying it.

Gina exhaled calmly through her nose. "Instead of prolonging the inevitable, why don't you just tell me where he is so we can get this all over with?"

Beckett took a bold step forward, watched the gun in the other woman's hand lift, but there was a hesitance in Gina's handling of the weapon and it gave Kate a surge of confidence, an upper hand in the situation. There was a reason Castle's wife had hired someone else to murder him.

"You'll never touch him."

Gina's perfectly groomed eyebrows spiked upwards. "Oh? Well, what if I did something even worse?" she hummed. "What if I killed you first? The best way to lure Richard out of wherever he may be hiding is to make his precious new toy a damsel in distress, don't you think?"

"Do you even have a plan here?" Kate challenged, inching closer. "What do you expect, to kill me and Rick and then what? Dump us in the lake and expect no one to notice?"

Gina shrugged, the nonchalance of the woman's posture causing Kate's nerves to rise. She had deemed Gina a sociopath after their first meeting and the woman's behavior was definitely holding true to the assessment. Which wasn't good news for them. There was little reasoning to be done with someone of Gina's status and mindset; Kate wouldn't be able to talk her out of this.

"After you failed to do what I thought was your job at the time, I moved on to my next resource. They'll be here soon and they'll happily help me with the grueling task of disposal." Gina raised the weapon in her hand, admiring the shine of the revolver. "Though, if you keep stalling this way, I may have to allow them the honors of putting you down. Which would you prefer, watching him die or forcing him to watch your life end first?"

Kate snarled and jerked closer, eliciting a threatening cock of Gina's head and a slide of her finger to the trigger.

"Take another step, Agent."

The idea of Gina having backup of her own could very well be a bluff and Castle's ex-wife wore one hell of a poker face, but if Rick had made it out before Gina had arrived, then Kate trusted he had used the possession of her cell phone to his advantage. The cops could be on their way, set to come barreling down the driveway at any minute. If she could just keep stalling for a while longer...

"You think I haven't been shot before?" Beckett questioned, her voice cold, lethal as she takes the forbidden step forward, and then another, causing Gina's posture to tense, her jaw to harden with apprehension. Kate was so close, nearly in arm's reach of the gun between them, she just needed another step. "You've never handled a weapon in your life, I've been on both ends of one."

She may not be the cold-blooded assassin she had fooled Gina into believing she was from the start, but she could be ruthless when she needed to be, she could kill for someone she loved if she had no other choice. She would kill for him without hesitation.

"And I always have the guts to pull the trigger."

The intimidation tactic worked, sending a subtle ripple of surprise through Gina's sharp brown eyes, just enough of a distraction to rattle her and allow Kate the chance to lunge forward.

A screech of anger left the other woman's lips as Kate's hand closed around the gloved knuckles clutching the gun, followed by a yelp of pain when Beckett used her knee to strike Gina in the abdomen, causing the other woman to gasp and double over. But Gina's grip on the gun was iron tight, determined, and though Kate was able to keep the weapon aimed to the ceiling, Gina was refusing to let go, twisting away from Beckett instead.

"You're not going to win," Gina seethed, both hands wrapped around the revolver now, even as Kate managed to tug her arms backwards, an angle that had to be painful for the other woman's shoulder, before knocking the heel of her boot into Gina's calf muscle.

The other woman cried out, staggered in surprise at the blow, and reflexively closed her finger around the trigger. The gun fired, a loud, echoing shot into the ceiling. Chips of wood rained down, getting caught in Beckett's hair, coating her shoulders, and she watched with a surge of hope as Gina stumbled, her arms wavering as her body swayed, her grasp on the gun loosening-

"Kate!"

Time seemed to pause for just a moment, both women frozen for that split second as Castle burst through the front door, Beckett's gun in his hand. It was a mere second and it was enough to ruin everything.

Gina broke free of Beckett's hold, striking Kate in the ribs with her elbow and aiming the hand still clutched around the gun at Rick. There was no time to grapple with Gina for the gun again, no time to tell Castle to get the shocked look off his face and raise his own weapon. There was only enough time for her to bolt from Gina's back and maneuver herself between the bullet and the man she'd managed to fall in love with.

* * *

When the glow of headlights had illuminated the cabin's window, he had jumped up from the table with a smile, surprised and somewhat smug over the fact that Beckett had returned from her trip to the store so quickly. But from the single glance he spared through the slit between the curtains, he realized the light that had flooded Kate's cabin was not coming from a familiar suburban, but instead a sleek black car that quickly went silent. And then he saw his wife – soon to be ex – slide out of the vehicle, retrieving a gun from the inside pocket of her trench coat.

The teasing grin had fallen from his lips, succumbing to a quiet gasp of terror, and Castle had snatched Kate's Glock from the table, slipped through the sliding back doors just as he heard the distinct click of Gina's heels on the porch steps. He knew he couldn't go far, couldn't disappear on Kate, but he couldn't play the sitting duck and allow Gina to put a bullet in him either.

He had tried to go to the road through the trail of the woods like Kate had instructed, but escape had quickly proven impossible when Gina had spent the entirety of Kate's absence scoping out the property, examining every form of exit, constantly forcing him to move from one hiding spot to the next. By the time a chance to slip away had finally arrived, it was already too late.

Once Kate had returned, he'd had no way to signal her. No way to warn her of the car that was now hidden around the side of the cabin, of the woman lying in wait within their temporary haven.

But when he heard the shot, instant panic had swamped his mind, worse case scenarios filling his head at lightning speed, and he had raced away from the window to Kate's room where he had been trying to sneak in, and pushed past the front door, shouting her name and distracting her for a second too long.

Gunfire exploded through the air for the second time, twin shots – one from his wife, the other from the Glock in his hand.

Gina staggered at the impact of the bullet, her hand flying to her shoulder, where crimson spread and coated the left side of her blouse. It wasn't a kill shot, but her mouth still fell open in shock, her eyes still rolled back and her body crumpled to the hardwood floor.

But Kate… Kate was still with him, eyes still wide and flaring with agony while the blood spilled from her body. She had jumped in front of him, tried to push him out of the way, but it was too late, too late for her to save them both, and the moment he saw her body jolt and ripple with pain, he hadn't hesitated to take aim at the woman who had caused it.

Castle collapsed to his knees at her side, felt the blood seep through his jeans and the panic slip around his throat.

"Kate," he choked, sliding a hand underneath her neck to support her head, cradling her ashen face in the other. "God, I'm so sorry. So sorry, I-"

Her head was heavy his palm, her unfocused eyes locking with his through the tortured sounds of her stuttered breathing. "S-still write about me?" she rasped, the corner of her mouth quirking up for him, but it did nothing for his shattering heart. It only made it worse.

"I will, I will and you're going to read every word," he promised, stroking the hair back from her face as the color drained from her skin. "I used the phone, Kate. I called 911, they'll be here."

He brushed his hand down her side, gently searching. She whimpered when his fingers tripped past her ribs, across her abdomen and over the pool of blood slicking down her side.

"I'm going to try to staunch the bleeding," he murmured to her, easing his hand from her nape and tearing his shirt from his shoulders, bundling it in his hands. "I'm sorry, Kate."

She cried out at the pressure he applied to her wound, helpless gasps and choked sobs forcing his chest to splinter with the sharp ache of causing her more pain. She had suffered enough, too much, but this couldn't be it for her, couldn't be how her story ended.

"Stay with me," he pleaded when her eyes began to flicker shut. "Please, Kate, don't - don't leave me. I just found you again."

Castle kept one hand secure on her abdomen as he returned to hover above her, remaining in her line of sight in hopes of keeping her awake and alert. He prayed to anyone, anything, that may be listening for the sound of sirens, for the flash of red and blue lights to paint the floors from the windows, but the silence of a night in the woods was his only reply, the red of Kate's blood the only color to smear the floorboards of her father's cabin.

She started to fade again, her head lolling to the side and her body going limp.

"Kate-"

"Castle," she breathed, the dull light of her eyes settled on him, a tiny curve of a smile lacing along her lips. "Love you - I loved you."

He could hear sirens in the distance.


	18. Chapter 18

Distant yelling filled her ears, shouting that echoed off of walls and ricocheted through her skull.

"You have to let me in! I _am_ her family! I'm all she has!"

She kept hearing the words bellowing through the darkness, so close, but muffled and on repeat. But she knew that voice, loved that voice when it was soft and tender in her ear at night, and she forced her eyes to peel open for it.

"Just let me in!"

_Please let him in._

"She's not even awake yet, Mr. Castle." A voice she didn't recognize was trying to placate him, trying to remain calm against his outbursts, but Kate knew the person he was arguing with had patience that was steadily wearing thin by the sounds of it. "Just give her a while longer-"

"I've been in that waiting room for nine hours, she's been out of surgery long enough-"

"Mr. Castle, if you don't step back, I will be forced to call security," the female voice threatened, stricter than before, and Kate made an attempt to speak, wanted to tell the woman to let him into the bright room where she was lying paralyzed and trapped, but the only sound that managed to crawl from her throat was a shriveled whimper that went unheard.

"Please, just-"

"Let him in." Another voice, commanding and determined, one she definitely recognized.

Within in the next second, Castle was barging through the door of her hospital room, his eyes wide and panicked, but softening just a fraction once they landed on her.

Kate blinked, the fuzzy edges of her vision finally starting to fade as Castle strode to her bedside, cautiously cradled the side of her face in one of his hands. He looked so scared, so decimated, and she tried to smile, tried to ease the lingering pain in his dark eyes, but her lips cracked with the attempt and Rick instantly pulled away. She opened her mouth to protest, but he returned to her with a cup of water, placing the tip of the straw between her parched lips.

"Where?" she rasped after the cool liquid had sluiced down the scratchy walls of her throat.

"Hospital," he murmured, stroking the layered bangs from her face, brushing his thumb along her hairline. "The bullet hit your liver."

"Are you okay?" The question seemed to baffle him for a moment and even though it hurt, her entire body feeling heavy and unbalanced, Kate reached up, caught the back of his neck with trembling fingers. "Castle."

"I'm fine. I just - you died. In the ambulance, Kate, you flatlined, twice and I - there was nothing-"

"Rick," she murmured, pressing her fingertips to the top of his vertebrae, urging him downwards, encouraging his forehead to rest upon hers. "I'm here."

And it was true, her body felt demolished, and she already knew the recovery process for an injury like this would be anything but kind, but she had survived.

Castle finally nodded, lifted his head to dust his lips to her forehead.

Kate cleared her throat and allowed her hand to slide from his neck, down his shoulder until it was slipping to his forearm. Castle took a careful seat next to her hip, cradling her hand between both of his and tracing random patterns on her knuckles. "Where's Gina?"

Castle opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by the swing of the door. The second voice she had heard earlier replying for him.

"Recovering from a shot to the shoulder, but in custody," McCord said with a tight smile, concern in her eyes as she swept them over Beckett. "Jeez, Agent. You look like you got shot or something."

"Good to see you too, Rachel," Kate muttered with a small grin. "This is Richard Castle, by the way."

"We've met," McCord smirked, abandoning the entry and joining the two of them, coming close enough to pat Castle on the back.

Rick glanced up to her with a grateful, but slightly embarrassed half smile. "Thanks for getting me in."

"Not a problem. You're family, after all?" Rachel arched an eyebrow at the two of them and Kate released a gentle sigh.

"I'm compromised," she mumbled to her partner and McCord actually laughed.

"You don't say?"

Castle's lips quirked, but his eyes were still crazed with worry.

"Mr. Castle, I don't mean to send you away so soon, but would you be okay if I talked to Agent Beckett alone for a minute?"

"Of course," Rick replied without hesitation, but his gaze didn't leave her, his fingers clenching around her knuckles for a moment before letting her go. "I'll go find some coffee."

McCord returned his polite smile, but the second the door shut behind him, her partner's smile faded to a frown.

"It's bad, isn't it?" Beckett murmured, wincing through the ripples of pain that thrived within her abdomen, twining around her insides like poison and strengthening the urge for a drug induced rest.

McCord sighed and settled in the plastic chair Castle had occupied, folding her hands on the edges of Kate's hospital bed.

"Kate, you know you're one of the best I've ever seen, unquestionably the best partner I could have asked for," McCord began and Kate's unsteady heart started to sink. "But Gina has your identity. She'll recover from the gunshot wound and she'll be sent to prison, but judging from what we know of this woman, she's not going to keep your name to herself."

"So I'm done." But it wasn't a question and Beckett swallowed hard at the reality of it. Her career, everything she worked for, her life – all in ruins.

"In terms of undercover work, yes," Rachel confirmed, a mixture of sympathy and regret flaring in her sharp blue eyes. "But - and you may hate me for this - I contacted Roy Montgomery…"

"You did _what_?" Beckett hissed, groaning quietly when the instinctual jerk upwards from the bed shot an arrow of agony through her midsection.

"You still have a place there, Beckett. They'd love to have you back at the Twelfth in the future _if _that's what you want."

"You had no right to make that call," Beckett growled, but she couldn't smother the flicker of hope that came alive in her chest, the idea of returning to the Twelfth precinct, a place she had once called her home, intimidating but welcome. "But I guess - thank you."

Rachel grinned and patted her on the hand lacking an IV.

"Anytime, partner. As for your recovery-"

Kate's shoulders tensed. "What about it?"

The smile McCord had offered her faded, apprehension filling the lines surrounding her mouth instead. "Like I said, it's unlikely that Gina will keep any of this to herself. Personally, I'm doubtful she'll come across any old enemies from the past, especially where she's going, but as a precaution, the boss already decided you'll be recovering at a safe house in Connecticut."

Beckett pursed her lips, blinking back the tears she knew were effects from the medication. It shouldn't be a surprise, most agents she'd known had recovered in secret locations after a serious injury, especially after undercover operations, but her mind was already flaring with remorse at the thought of leaving him.

"What about Castle?"

"He and his family should be in the clear, but we'll keep an eye on him for a month or two, just in case."

Kate nodded, but she had wanted to be the one watching his back, standing at his side for the next few months, maybe even longer. Since their unconventional reunion, she had insisted that there was no future for them, but now... now she couldn't imagine her life without him.

"I'll make sure there's a way for you to keep in contact with him, Kate," McCord murmured, the kind, honest smile she saved for off duty occasions making an appearance and Beckett sighed but smiled back, trusting her now former partner, knowing she would do whatever it took to lessen the misery of Beckett's recovery. "Speaking of, are you going to tell me what went on with the writer or…"

Said writer poked his head inside the door before Beckett could respond, saving her from answering such a loaded question, and Kate's lips curled upwards at the sight of him.

"You can come in, Castle," she chuckled, rolling her eyes at the reproachful look she received from McCord.

"You'll tell me eventually," Rachel mused, rising from her seat with a narrowed gaze.

"You wish," Beckett scoffed, drumming her digits on the edge of the hospital bed and humming in approval when Castle took a seat at her hip, allowing her to coil her fingers at his thigh.

"I'll see you two sometime tomorrow," Rachel addressed them both at the door. "I need to check in with Chief Villante, see where we go from here, but security will be stationed outside your door, Beckett, just in case Cowell wasn't bluffing about having a partner."

"I like your partner," Castle stated once McCord had shut the door behind her.

"Mm, me too, but there better be only one agent for you," she warned, fighting the growing weight of her eyelids.

Castle glanced back to her with a curved brow and the crooked grin that she'd grown to love. Damn, she loved him, and he knew, didn't he?

"The drugs are really kicking in now, aren't they?"

"Maybe," she hummed, tightening her fingers in his jeans, as if her grip on him could keep her there. Castle stroked his fingers along her forearm, tracing the blue streak of a vein, and she sighed, losing her grip on reality, on him.

"Don't lemme go, Castle. M'heavy."

Her eyes had fallen closed and no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't get them to open, couldn't escape the bittersweet darkness that wrapped her in an all encompassing embrace, but she felt him looming above her, one hand curled around hers while the other skimmed the side of her face, tethering her.

"I've got you," he promised her and she tilted her cheek into the warmth of his palm.

He had her.

* * *

"You should sleep," she mumbled, watching him as he continued to scribble in the legal pad she had given him back at the cabin.

It had been two days since her shooting (or at least… she _thought_ it had been two days. She could be off by a day thanks to the morphine still coursing strong and steady through her system) and he hasn't left her side, not while she'd been awake. She had no idea if he had left during the stretches of time she had spent unconscious, if he had eaten or slept, but he didn't look good.

His eyes were bloodshot, his face pale and drained, his hair oily and sticking up at odd angles from where he'd run his fingers through it countless times, but every time he looked at her, it all faded under the anguish of his eyes.

"I slept while you slept," he answered, not unlocking his eyes from the path of his pen on the paper.

"Liar," she huffed, feeling her own lips curve when the corner of his mouth twitched. "You know, there's a hotel nearby."

His eyes cut to her, sharp and threatening. "And?"

"You've been staying here since I was admitted," she stated, but he only tilted his head, as if her words were no more than a silly observation.

"Your point?"

"Rick."

"I'm not leaving, Kate," he stated, but his eyes fell back to the yellow paper. "I don't want to leave, you don't want me to leave, so I'm staying."

Beckett rubbed at her eyes, trying without success to wipe away the scratchy remnants of sleep and agitation. He was right, she didn't want him to leave, but he was miserable and the last thing she wanted was for him to remain at her bedside in some misguided act of chivalry or devotion.

"You can't even look at me," she pointed out softly, noticing the pen in his hand go still. "You don't want to be here and that's okay, Castle, it's understandable, it's-"

"Stop," he sighed, dropping the pen and pressing his knuckles to one of his eye sockets. "Just stop."

The guilt spiraled in her stomach, twisting around her intestines and causing the wound still fresh and living in her abdomen to sing out in agony. His eyes had been avoiding hers since the second time she awoke, the night after Rachel had left, and it was driving her crazy and breaking her heart all at once to witness the restrained terror that clouded his eyes in the few instances they met hers

"What do you see?" she finally asked, watching those troubled eyes flutter shut. "When you look at me now, Castle, what-"

Castle placed the legal pad on her bedside table and eased onto the edge of her hospital bed, his gaze trained on her stomach, where the gunshot would hid beneath bandages and crisp white sheets.

"I see the lights going out," he admitted, the confession quiet and ragged. "I see you lying in a pool of your own blood. I see you fading away in the ambulance. I just see - I see you dying, Kate. That's all I've seen for the last three days."

She bit her lip, mostly to keep it from quivering, and snagged his hand from atop his thigh. She didn't speak as she guided his palm to her chest, resting his unsteady hand over the bones of her sternum, above her heart.

Castle's eyes flickered up to meet hers, the curtain of the desolation slipping away for a single moment.

"Do you remember what I said to you?" she murmured, coasting her thumb along the path of his knuckles. "Before I passed out?"

Her eyes followed the bob of his Adam's apple, the thick swallow that trailed down his throat, and breathed a sigh of relief at the nod of his head. A small part of her had feared he had forgotten, or worse, that he had chosen not to remember.

"I love you, Castle," she whispered for good measure, hearing the intake of his breath in the quiet room, feeling the pulse at his wrist speed into a gallop. "I fell in love with you and I kind of hate myself for it, but I'm not going anywhere."

For the first time in what had apparently been 72 long hours, a genuine smile claimed his lips.

"You sure they didn't up your dosage, Kate?" he teased and she shot him her best glare, but the humor faded after only a moment and he curled his hand over her chest, as if he could capture her heart in his palm. "I didn't think you remembered."

"It's not something so easily forgotten," she admitted, using the hand draped over his to tug him closer. It took a bit of maneuvering, but he didn't argue as she urged him to settle beside her in the cramped hospital bed.

The warmth of his body at her side felt nice, a soothing heat that penetrated her skin and spilled through her blood. When the drugs began to take her under, she always felt as if she was drifting away, fading, but Castle was like an anchor at her side, keeping her where she wanted to be.

"Stay with me like this for a while."

He responded by easing his body closer, allowing her to rest her uninjured side against him, to turn her head into his shoulder and exhale the faint but comforting scent of his aftershave and the aroma of wood and coffee that she associated with her dad's cabin. He smelled like home.

"So Beckett, when exactly did you fall in love with me?" he hummed, an injection of playfulness to his tone that set her heart at ease but sent her eyes rolling. "Was there an exact moment? A specific instance when the stars aligned and-"

"Castle," she growled. "I don't care if I'm in a hospital bed, I'll make you pay if you keep that up."

He held his hands up in supplication, but the beaming smile didn't leave his face as he relaxed against her side, easing the blanket upwards to cover her body and his. She turned her face away from him, tilting on her good side, sighing out a gentle laugh as he curved his body to fit hers like a mangled puzzle piece, careful of her wound but spooning her nonetheless.

"In the lake," she whispered, grinning to herself at his gasp of surprise that fluttered across the back of her neck. Kate laced her fingers with his, brought their intertwined hands to her lips to brush a kiss to his knuckles. "That's when I knew I could love you back, Castle."


	19. Chapter 19

"Stop cheating," she huffed and Castle sputtered in offense, holding his splayed hand of cards to his chest just to watch her suppress a smile of amusement.

She was looking so much better after a few days in the hospital, still in pain and still so much more fragile than the Kate Beckett he was accustomed to, but she wasn't quite as pale anymore, wasn't too weak to move, and he was finally able to stop seeing her lifeless body every time he turned his eyes on her.

"I would never-"

"I saw you slip that card into the deck."

Rick sighed and slapped his cards down on the hospital bed while Kate smirked with triumph. "I should have requested Monopoly."

"Why? I'd just beat you at that too," she grinned, reshuffling the deck, and he was just about to respond with a clever remark of his own when the door eased open and a familiar voice had him jerking his attention towards it.

"Agent Beckett?"

Castle and Beckett both glanced up to meet the tentative figure of Alexis standing in the doorway, a colorful bouquet of flowers in her arms.

"Pumpkin," Castle said softly as he rose, a gentle smile on his face. "What are you doing here? I thought you and Gram weren't coming by until the evening."

The three of them – Castle, Beckett, and McCord – had decided it was safer for Castle's family to wait a few days before giving them the all clear to drive up and meet them in upstate New York. Beckett had very adamantly preferred that Castle go to convene with his family elsewhere, like at the hotel down the street that McCord had checked him into, the place only five minutes away from the hospital, but he refused to leave, couldn't leave. Didn't want to leave.

The situation with Gina had been briefly explained to both his mother and daughter by an FBI agent and Castle himself had placated and assured both women of his safety via cellphone, but Alexis's eyes were brimming with questions still unanswered as she stood stoic and uncertain in the doorway.

"We were, but Gram grew impatient," she explained with a grin before her eyes hesitantly flickered to Kate. "The doctor and the agent at the door said it was okay if I came in, but if you don't want any visitors, I can-"

"No," Kate rasped, a smile that was so kind, so tender, gracing her lips as she beckoned his daughter closer with a slow tilt of her head. "It's so nice to finally meet you, Alexis. Cas- your dad has told me so many great things about you."

Alexis lit up at the praise and Castle felt his heart burst with pride, whether for his daughter or his… his Kate, he wasn't yet sure. "Dad hasn't been able to say much, but I know you saved his life and almost lost yours. Are you okay, Agent Beckett?"

"Kate," she corrected, motioning for Alexis to sit down on the unoccupied chair at the opposite side of her bed. "And yeah, I will be."

Alexis still had the flowers in her lap and Castle leaned over Kate's waist, offered to put the bouquet in the untouched vase at her bedside table.

"Dad?" He glanced up from arranging the overpriced flowers from the gift shop. Alexis was always the best of the two of them when it came to gift shopping, whether it be for birthdays, holidays, or get well moments as such, but she usually had him at her side for every occasion, offering his input. She had picked this bouquet on her own though, and had done a beautiful job. "Do you mind if I talk to Kate? Alone?"

He tried not to stiffen, tried not to let his apprehension show, but he knew Kate could sense it when she stole his hand, gave it a gentle squeeze.

"Sure," he chirped with a false smile. "I should go check in with your Gram anyway. I'll be back soon."

He dropped a kiss on the top of Alexis's head and then one to Kate's, evoking a startled smile that made him feel a little bit better about leaving his daughter alone with her.

* * *

"Is everything okay?" Kate asked as soon as the door shut soundlessly behind Castle. She had almost begged him to stay, almost clutched his hand in desperation instead of reassurance. She had never planned to meet his daughter, not before, and now they were alone in her hospital room.

Alexis nodded, but she was fidgeting with her hands, wringing them out and knotting her fingers. "Is it… is it true that Gina tried to hurt my dad?" she finally whispered. "That she wanted him dead? That she's the one who did this to you?"

Kate sighed, attempted to sit up in the hospital bed out of reflex, but only ended up grunting in pain, wincing at the rapid spread of fire and causing Alexis to not so subtly start to panic.

"What is it? Should I get a nurse? A doctor? Should I call my-"

"No, no, I'm fine," Kate murmured, breathing through the ripples of agony that radiated through her body until the throbbing grew dull and she could see straight once more. "I'm sorry, Alexis, I didn't mean to scare you," she said in her most calming voice, the one she would channel for a victims' families back when she was a cop, noticing his daughter's widened crystal eyes scanning her from head to toe.

Castle trusted her with his daughter and she was already terrifying her.

"I shouldn't have moved," she added, trying to downplay it, and it seemed to work.

Alexis sat back in her chair, slipped her hands under her thighs. "You'll - you'll get better, right? The damage isn't permanent?"

"Yeah, should be good as new in a few months," Kate assured her with her best attempt at a smile, but Alexis wasn't an easy one to fool, she knew his daughter could see how strained the quirk of her lips was.

Alexis nodded, expecting, waiting.

"Gina hired me," she began, keeping her eyes on the girl, gauging her reaction to each word. If it became too much, she would just stop, maybe leave a few of the harder parts out. "I work for the FBI as an undercover agent. Most times, I pretend to work as an assassin, you know, the kind people hire to kill others?" Alexis nodded along, not the least bit confused, and oh, yes, this was Castle's daughter. He once told her that the kid proofread his final drafts for fun, of course the idea of a hired murderer wouldn't unsettle her.

"And Gina hired you to kill my dad?" Alexis concluded, slightly horrified but intent on learning the truth, not at all finished hearing the whole story.

"Yes. And I took the job because I wasn't going to let her."

"Because you're the woman from the party," she murmured, her lips pursed to hide a smile that made Kate's stomach flutter, but she only lifted her eyebrows in response.

"He told you about me?"

"Only a few days before he left for LA. He never thought he would find you again, but he did." Alexis's eyes were sparkling, excitement and something she could only assume was hope shimmering in her irises. She looked just like her father. "Do you love him back?"

Kate choked, started to cough uncontrollably, and then began to wheeze at the tug of pain it evoked in her abs. Yep, she was going to scar his child. But Alexis remained calm and instead of panicking this time, rising from her seat and offering Kate a sip of water from the pitcher on the bedside table.

"Back?" Beckett croaked after a long gulp of the ice water.

Alexis started to fidget again, the plastic cup shivering in her grasp she reclaimed from Kate. "When he called me, while you were in surgery, he told me practically everything. Probably a more sugarcoated version, but he - well, I just assumed…"

Kate carefully lifted her arm, rubbed at her eyes, but her lips still curled beneath her palm. Was there really any point in keeping it a secret?

"I do love him back and he's well aware of it."

She heard Alexis's quiet intake of breath, sensed the secret smile on her lips before she could even return her gaze to the girl.

"So does that mean you… you're not going to disappear again, are you?"

"Alexis-"

"I know you have your own life and that this isn't a fairytale and that I'm just a teenager, so I hardly know anything, apparently, but my dad – I just want him to be happy and I know I make him happy, but so do you and I just think-"

"Alexis," Kate stated, firmly this time, watching Alexis deflate into the chair, looking so much older, so much more weary than any twelve year old should. "I want to make it work with your dad. I don't want to disappear on him again."

"But?" Alexis frowned.

"I have to heal and so does he." Kate's hand rose between them, shaking the entire time, but it was enough to keep his daughter quiet when the words rose up like a tidal wave visibly ready to pour out of the younger woman's lips. "He deserves to spend some quality time with you for a while, to feel safe again now that Gina's finally gone. Because of who I am…" She swallowed hard, lowering her hand and clenching her fingers in the bed sheet. "I haven't discussed it with him yet, but for my recovery, I have to be taken to a safe house. There are still people out there who could come for me, wanting to hurt me like Gina did, so I just need to lie low for a while, do you understand?"

"Yes," Alexis murmured, still crestfallen at the answer, but not bitter, thankfully not bitter. "I understand and... and I'm glad Dad fell in love with someone like you, Agent Beckett."

Kate's heart stuttered hard in her chest, slamming up against her ribcage with bruising force, and Alexis' smile softened.

"My dad hasn't had a lot of serious relationships, but of the few women I've actually met, none of them cared about him as much as you already do."

"Alexis, you don't-"

"No one else would have taken a bullet for him." The solemn words silenced her, spread stillness through the hospital room as his daughter held her gaze with fierce sincerity and grave insistence in her own. "So thank you, for keeping him safe." Alexis covered Kate's hand, giving it a brief squeeze before rising from her seat. "I'll go get him."

Kate remained speechless as Alexis made her exit, too many conflicting thoughts vying for attention in her tired mind and dancing on her tongue. She didn't know what she was expecting when Alexis asked to speak to her alone, but it had not been that.

Beckett grit her teeth and shifted in the bed, felt the flare of unwelcome fire in her liver serve as reminder. She was selfishly glad Richard Castle could love someone like her too, but he shouldn't.

He shouldn't love her.

* * *

She told him the truth that night, after his daughter had left with his mother to settle in at the hotel, after he had refused to go with them.

His entire face had fallen, looking as if she had just kicked his puppy, and never had she wanted to go to him as badly as she did then, when he was sitting at the foot of her bed crumbling with rejection.

"When do you leave?" was the first thing he asked.

"Tomorrow." Castle scrubbed at his eyes. He looked the extra ten years older than her in that moment, so worn from the events of the last few days, from her.

"How long?"

"Until it's safe. Until I heal."

"And I can't come with you." It wasn't a question.

"I just need some time to heal, okay? Just some time."

"Okay," he agreed, because he had no choice. But it wasn't what he wanted, not at all.

It wasn't what she wanted either.

Castle remained sitting at her bedside even once the uncomfortable silence swept in and wrapped around them both, but he wasn't with her, his eyes hard and focused on the adjacent wall, his mind a million miles away.

"Rick," she called, her outstretched hand reaching for him, barely able to glance his knee from the damn bed. Castle sighed, and she knew it wasn't what he wanted, but he leaned in for her, let her guide him with her palm on his jaw to rest his forehead to hers. "It's not over. Just don't - don't give up on me yet."

He released a strained noise and pressed in closer, dislodging their foreheads for the clash of noses, the exchange of shared breath.

"I hadn't planned to," he scraped out, cradling her skull in his large hands and she craved the ability to arch into the wall of his body hovering above hers, to drag him down to lie atop her on the hospital bed, to fix it all with the tangle of limbs and meeting of mouths. "I can wait, as long as I know what I'm waiting for."

Beckett swallowed, gulped down the fear of diving in with anyone, especially him, and met his striking gaze in the darkness of her hospital room.

"For me?" she murmured. "For an attempt at some kind of life together, a real relationship without the secrets and the lies - whatever you want to call it - like you said in the meadow. If you still want that, but if not I-"

The smudge of his lips to hers eradicated the insecurities bubbling on her tongue and she hummed with relief until he pulled away.

"I still want that. I just wish…" His sentence trailed, but she knew, understood the mixture of sorrow and longing on his lips, and lifted her head to dust another kiss to his frowning mouth.

"Me too," she whispered, snaking a hand between them to stroke her thumb along his unshaven jaw, closing her eyes when Castle lowered his forehead to rest at her shoulder. "Stay 'til morning?"

He nudged her to the side in lieu of answering, crawled in beneath the thin sheet covering her lower half and arranged himself comfortably beside her. Her night nurse would shoot them both dirty looks later, but the staff had given up on trying to kick him out after her first night of admission, the agent stationed at her door vouching for him out of what she assumed was sympathy, or more likely exasperation. So Kate leaned further into his side, curling her hand at his forearm when he banded his arms around her upper body, allowing her the haven of his chest to fall into.

It didn't take long for her to begin drifting, her body loosening, limbs growing heavy in his arms, the warmth of his presence more drugging than the last of the medication laced through her veins. His lips brushed her temple before she could fade, pressing words into her hair.

"Love you, Kate."

Her eyelids had become too heavy to lift, the effort of movement too great, but Kate managed to glide one hand up to his chest, traveling across the planes of muscle beneath wrinkled fabric until the beat of his heart resounded strong and steady beneath her palm. She clutched his shirt to hold on, coiled her fingers there, attempting to trap his heart in the cage of her hand. His love terrified her, left her breathless at the beauty of it yet had her tempted to run as far as her legs would take her at the same time. But she loved him back, had for a while now, and there was beauty in the freedom of accepting that too.

And she needed to tell him all of this, had so much to say before morning, before they were forced to take separate paths once again, but the peaceful darkness quieted her before the sentences could form, claimed her before she could say the words back to him.


	20. Chapter 20

Castle sighed and recoiled his legs from the top of his desk, lifting his laptop from his thighs and returning it to the smooth surface of his desk. Only three months of writing about her and the first book was practically done, his new publisher thrilled with the idea and his progress, surprised but enthusiastic to hear he already had ideas for a second. But it wasn't enough, just writing about her.

He missed Kate Beckett with an intensity that left him aching some nights, an empty space in his heart she had so quickly carved out and filled during their time together now hollow and yearning for her return. It wasn't as if he had been cut off completely, wasn't left wondering where she was or if he would ever see her again. She called him when she could, when the phone lines were deemed safe, and she kept him up to date with her recovery, listened intently when he spoke about the book or what was going on in the city, in his life without her.

Sometimes she broke the rules and called him late in the night when she couldn't sleep, while her security wasn't too strict in their attention, and he told her stories about Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook, about Alexis and her childhood adventures, about the future he vowed to have with her. Sometimes she gave her own ideas about a life together right back to him, spinning a tale of the two of them back together in Manhattan, him writing best sellers while she chased down killers with the NYPD, but she always came home to him.

Those kinds of stories made the time without her worse, but he knew she hadn't decided to recover in solitude to place space between them.

She had enemies, enemies Gina had risked exposing her to when his ex-wife had revealed Kate's identity, and so for the time being, Kate had to lie low. That meant going into hiding while she was vulnerable, taking the time to heal without looking over her shoulder in fear of a new threat, and staying away from him to save him and his family from any form of potential danger as well. He should be grateful, he should be, but the logic hadn't stopped him from missing her like crazy for the last 92 days.

Castle spun in his chair to stare out the window, watching the waves of the ocean crash and recede from the shore in a relaxing rhythm, the shimmer of the midday sun illuminating the sea, turning his Hamptons hideaway into a vacation dream, but he was still trying to stop wallowing the gloominess that hovered above him like a personal storm cloud.

It was easier when Alexis was around to brighten his spirits with her presence, but ever since they had arrived in the Hamptons mere weeks after returning home three months ago, his daughter had made quite a few new friends and what kind of father would he be if he denied her the fun of sleepovers just to satisfy his own selfish need for company?

The ring of the doorbell echoed through the house, reeling him back from his reverie, and Castle retrieved his phone from his pocket while he rose from his office chair, checking his messages for a clue to who could be on his front porch, but his inbox was empty and Alexis wasn't supposed to be home until tomorrow morning.

Rick hesitated in the foyer, apprehension coiling around his spine like a snake. Ever since his ex-wife had hired an assassin - well, an FBI agent roaming around under the disguise of an assassin - to kill him, he had learned to live in fear, to strengthen his guard against those around him, to protect himself. But when he padded silently to the front door and spared a peek through the peephole, all of his defenses crumbled to the floor.

He unlocked the door with fumbling fingers, swung it open with a racing heart, and felt his breath catch at the sight of Kate Beckett on his front porch.

"Hey Castle," she grinned, and he had to blink, unsure if he had finally fallen to the point of hallucinations, but no, not possible. She looked so much better than he remembered, better than he could have imagined, so much healthier and happier after three months away. Her eyes sparkled with amusement as she took a tentative step closer, brushed her fingers along his. "That invitation to stay with you in the Hamptons still open?"

He tried not to literally slam the door closed with her body as he surged into her, cradling her face while his mouth worshipped at her lips, her jaw, her neck. When she had said 'time', he had assumed more than three months, he had assumed the entirety of her recovery and then some, but it had barely been a full ninety days and she was here at his home in the Hamptons with a suitcase in her hands.

"Where's Alexis?" she gasped, dropping her bag and curling her fingers in his hair.

He grunted, drifted a cautious hand down her side and hovered over the wound on her abdomen. "Sleepover until tomorrow."

Her fingers closed around his wrist, gently guided his hand under the loose fitting top and laid his palm to rest over the marred skin. He held her gaze as his thumb circled the puckered skin he found beneath her ribs, the long scar where they had cut her open to dig the bullet out of her liver.

"How are you?" he whispered while her fingers abandoned his hand to touch his face, tracing the lines bracketing his mouth, spanning from his eyes, learning him again with gentle fascination in her gaze.

He had always been fascinated with her, he'd made no secret of that, but he had never imagined Kate could ever be filled with the same look of wonder. Secretly, he had feared there would always be an imbalance, that his love for her would forever be the one to outweigh whatever feelings she may have for him, that he would always be the one to care too much. He's not so sure about that anymore.

"Better," she smiled softly. "Better now."

Castle swallowed, tried hard to contain the dopey grin on his lips that kept making her laugh, because even though all he wanted to do was revel in her presence, in her touch, he still had serious questions to ask.

"Are you - do you have to go back? Into hiding?"

Kate chewed on her lower lip, but shook her head, caressed the cleft of his chin with her thumb. "No. They wanted me to relocate to another safe house for an extra couple of months, but there hasn't been any sign of a threat and I still have to be careful, but I just…" Her shoulders shrugged, her eyes shining a shy hazel as they fell to rest on the top button of his shirt that her fingers were toying with. "I needed to see you. Three months is just – it was too long, Castle. Too long."

The circle of her arms at his neck surprised him, the gentle knead of her fingers to his nape a welcome but unexpected touch, and he tentatively returned her embrace, felt her body strong, close, and warm against his with no intention of moving. The woman he remembered had held herself away from him, even in the most intimate of moments, always wary, always ready to run. But now… he felt like he had every piece of her that there was to offer.

"Too long," he echoed, ignoring the urge in his chest to remain that way with her for an eternity, taking a step back instead. "But Kate, you're… you're sure this is where you want to be?" Kate's brow creased, confusion knitting as a hint of hurt flared in her eyes, but he clung to the bones of her hips when she attempted to move backwards, away from him. "I just mean - because the last time we were together-"

"I told you I loved you," she stated in response, the hurt gone, determination and the threat of indignation taking its place. "And I know it isn't the same, but we've been talking on the phone for the last three months. Does nothing I said to you during those conversations count?"

"Yes," he answered, squeezing her waist, hoping to convey reassurance through his touch. "Every word. I just know the last few months have been difficult, for both of us, and I don't want to rush you into anything. I want - I want to do it right."

Of all the reactions, he never would have predicted the relieved quirk of her lips, the spill of amusement in her eyes. "Since when are you the responsible one?" she chuckled, untangling from his arms, but holding onto his gaze. "Castle, I don't want to rush things either. I want us to take our time, but I don't want to waste it." Kate's eyes abandoned his to take notice of her surroundings, to spend just a moment in silent awe of his home, and he didn't protest. He didn't try to stop her when she drifted away from him, through the foyer, into the living area and past the kitchen, until she reached the elegant French doors that would lead them to the beach.

Kate glanced over her shoulder for confirmation and he nodded, following after her as she pushed down on the elegant handle and stepped into the sunlight. She toed off her shoes at the porch and descended down the steps into the sand. Castle watched her relish in the perks of the beach, wiggling her toes in the sand and tilting her head back to taste the sun on her face, but it was only a few seconds before she was extending her hand for him, grinning when he accepted her unspoken invitation.

They walked in silence down towards the edge of the water, but the gentle curve never left her mouth. It reminded him of how she looked at the cabin all those months ago, so free of worry and fear, but he realized the unburdened expression was even more true now, more beautiful here.

"Everything was so rushed before," she began again, sweeping her thumb along the edge of his knuckle. "The entire time I was scared of losing you. Now, I just… I want to just _be_ with you."

His heart exalted with relief at the words, his hand tightening around hers in silent affirmation, but there was still one more important topic that he couldn't let slip away, that he had to address before they could go any farther.

"Being with me… you know that it's a package deal, right?"

Castle's breath fell hostage to his lungs the second the words left his mouth, but Kate didn't hesitate, nodding right away and returning her gaze to him.

"Of course. I was hoping…" She chewed on her bottom lip, a familiar flicker of uncertainty dancing across her sun streaked face. "I could always stay at a hotel in town, but I thought maybe-"

"Kate, you're staying with me," he cut in, and yeah, it might be a little presumptuous, but she was not staying in the Hamptons for him only to check into a hotel. "There's a multitude of guest rooms."

The corner of her mouth curled, a mischievous trace of a smirk unfurling. "Mm, I have a feeling I won't be spending much time in my assigned guest room."

He laughed, nudged her with his shoulder and watched the smirk blossom into a smile. "You're welcome to whichever bedroom you like, including mine."

"Thanks, Castle," she murmured, ducking her head to hide behind the gossamer curtain of her hair, and wow, Kate Beckett was acting like such a girl compared to the ruthless, faux hit woman he had met in the summer. "But I was thinking I could ask Alexis first, if she minded me staying."

Castle came to a stop, his toes sinking in the damp sand, the cool water surging forward to lap at his ankles.

"And if she's okay with that, then maybe soon I could take her out for lunch, get our nails done, you know, girly things?" she added quickly, a self-deprecating laugh accompanying the suggestion. "Whatever she prefers, but I also understand if you'd rather not have your daughter hanging out with someone like m-"

He didn't let her finish, refused to allow the end of that sentence to come out of her mouth, so he kissed her instead, curled a hand at the back of her neck and fit his mouth to hers before that last syllable could slip free.

"My daughter happens to think you're the coolest person she's ever met," he informed her, listening to her exhale, feeling the heat of her breath coat the lips still brushing against hers. "So of course you can spend time with her."

Her eyes fluttered open, her lashes tangling in the fringe of his, exposing the sheer volume of hope taking occupancy in her irises. Despite his short time of knowing her, he had seen nearly every emotion Kate had to offer, but never once had he seen this look. Never once had he seen her so happy and she hadn't even been here an hour.

"Okay," she grinned, drifting out of his grasp to continue their trek down the oceanside, but Rick pulled her back by their linked hands.

"Let's go back to the house. I'll give you a tour of the place, make you lunch, and then we'll come back out," he offered, not willing to mention it, but noticing all too easily how thin she was. During their time together, she had rarely eaten, allowing the worries of the day to consume her instead, and he could only imagine what kind of severity that had reached while she was alone in isolation.

Kate nodded, compliant in trailing along as he started away from the shore. He wasn't used to leading her, wasn't used to the idea of an equal partnership between the two of them, but he was already beginning to like the concept.


	21. Chapter 21

Richard Castle's home in the Hamptons was breathtaking. Of course, she had known what it looked like from research done before she had met him, but pictures of the mansion from the outside, photos of the property and the pristine shots of each room taken for selling purposes did no justice to the place. He had made it his own, made it feel more like a cozy beach cottage despite its size, and already had her falling in love with it.

He had walked her through the house, shown her each room, allowed her an intimate look into the master bedroom, one she hoped to share with him tonight, and even gave her a tour of the pool, the tennis court, showing her every available luxury that he emphasized she was welcome to use any time she pleased. It scared her, to feel so comfortable here so soon, to picture herself existing in his home, his life, so easily. She knew what she wanted, yes, but that didn't stop her insecurities from coming alive, crushing the excited little butterflies in her stomach with an iron fist.

"Kate," he called, reaching across the patio table to dust his fingers at her wrist. "You okay? You keep zoning out."

"Sorry," she murmured, returning to the burger he had grilled for her and taking a satisfying bite of the well-cooked meat, the fresh vegetables, and the toasted bun. She had had no knowledge of his culinary skills, but he had definitely surpassed any potential expectations. "It's just really beautiful here," she explained after a sip of water, allowing herself another glimpse of the ocean, another breath of the salt in the air.

"Told you you'd love it," he winked, waggling his eyebrows at her even as she returned the gesture with an eye roll.

She had missed him.

Fiercely.

She wouldn't admit it to him, not yet, but the thought of seeing him again had been the only thing to soften the agony of her recovery at the farm for those three unending months. Healing, physical therapy,_ actual_ therapy – they had all worn her down, left her crawling into bed at night with her muscles weary and her eyes wet, but then his number would appear on her burner cell and she would be allowed a few minutes of his voice in her ear, and even the darkest days would end with a flicker of brightness.

The worry that maybe their whirlwind of a romance would be nothing more than just that had become a present knot in her stomach within those first few days away from him, but those nightly phone conversations had eradicated her doubts with rapid intensity. The verbal communication had strengthened her belief in who they were, in what they could be, and it had caused her yearning to be able to put this theory to the test to grow more powerful with each passing day.

"Have you talked to Montgomery?"

Kate blinked, found him watching her, head tilted in curiosity, probably trying to figure out where exactly she kept disappearing to. She tightened the fingers around her food, determined to finish the massive sized burger and to stop losing herself to her thoughts when she was finally where she wanted to be.

"Yeah, I have a string of evaluations in a month that will determine whether or not I'm qualified to come back."

"You know you'll pass," Castle assured her while she took another small bite. "Rachel told me you were the best the NYPD had ever seen."

"What're you doing talking to Rachel?" she huffed, but there was amusement dancing in the sunlit pools of his eyes and he grinned in response.

"Don't be jealous, sweetheart," he teased, catching her ankle, circling his thumb over the delicate bone protruding when she delivered a playful kick to his shin beneath the table. "Sometimes she would screen my daily phone calls with you, tease me about our undying _love_-"

Kate laughed, loud and uninhibited, unable to remember the last time she had laughed so genuinely, felt it spreading like warmth through her chest.

"She did not," Beckett muttered, popping the last of her burger into her mouth with a triumphant smirk. She knew he was trying to ply her with well-balanced meals already, caught him studying her every bite for more than the apparent interest that came with eyeing her lips.

"_Anyway_," Castle stretched out in the patio chair before pushing back to stand. He was dressed in cargo shorts and a white button down that fluttered in the sea breeze, the outfit one she had yet to see on him and she was almost surprised by how much she liked it, how much it made her want to curl up in the sand with him and exist in the peace the ocean atmosphere provided. "So in the fall? We'll go back to the city?"

Beckett paused in her rise from her own chair, glancing back to him in apprehension. "Castle, I don't want you to have to rearrange your life around me."

"You're a part of my life," he answered, shrugging as he tugged her up the rest of the way. "An important part. And I'd be returning to the city regardless, Kate. It's not like it's an imposition."

The sunshine highlighted his hair, turned his skin a golden brown, and had his eyes shining an even brighter shade of blue. He was beautiful, in ways she never would have imagined, and she so badly wanted to be what he deserved.

"But what happens when we get back?" she questioned, her voice tinged with something uncertain, something hesitant and… scared? Yeah, even she could hear it, she was still petrified when it came to him. "What if - what if we don't work in the real world? What if my job comes between us again or I screw it up? I don't - god, I don't want to ruin this, Castle."

Her gaze drifted towards the ocean and she tried to train her breathing to the pattern of the waves, tried not to let it hurt her when Castle released her hand.

"Kate." He relocated his palm to her jaw, forced her eyes upwards to meet him. "I can't promise that this will work," he admitted, and she felt her lips curve downwards before she could stop it, felt his thumb brush across the frown. "But just because we don't have the answers now, doesn't mean we can't find our way. After everything we've already been through, I really don't see a change in environment breaking us."

More 'what if's bubbled on her tongue, but Castle was already ahead of her, stopped her before she could even start.

"And I'm not going to give up on us either. I'll scratch and claw for every inch because I want this to work, just as much as you do." His thumb drifted away from her bottom lip, traveling up the sharp bone of her cheek to caress the delicate skin beneath her eye. "I love you, Kate. That's more apparent now than it's ever been. So spend the summer with me and my daughter, enjoy your last month of vacation, and we'll go from there."

She knew better than to trust in words, in reassurances, but she resisted the born instinct to doubt him, to expect the worst, and decided to believe him, to trust wholeheartedly just before rising on her bare toes to kiss him.

Castle met her mouth with that foreign reverence she had so dearly missed, attending to the surface of her lips with the bold sweeps of his tongue while his hands feathered at her cheeks, soft and tentative until she arched for more. Her fingers fisted in the front of his shirt, trying to draw him closer, yearning for the heated press of his body against hers, the physical connection that their relationship was once built upon, for proof that he still wanted her.

A low groan rose in his throat when she eased a knee between his thighs, rocked her hips forward to greet his and hummed when he sucked her bottom lip between his teeth. His fingers glided into her hair, cupping the back of her skull and angling her mouth, allowing him an easy opportunity to deepen the kiss, to remind her just how quickly he could have her blood going hot and her veins turning to live wires already sparking with electricity.

Kate released his shirt to wrap her arms around him, splaying her hands wide over the hard muscles and rigid bones of his back, melding him against her and releasing a moan at the stroke of his tongue, the trail of his mouth from her lips to her jaw, down to her neck, sucking hard at her strident pulse until she couldn't handle anything less.

"Castle," she gasped, clawing at his shoulders, trying not to rip his shirt, but needing it gone. "Rick, please, please-"

Rick slid his hands past her hips, down to the firm muscles of her thighs, and hoisted her up, waiting until her legs were twined securely around his waist to turn towards the open French doors. He stumbled up the stairs with her, growling every time she rolled her hips or nipped at his jaw, and found their way back into his bedroom.

God, she'd missed him.

A mess of moans and laughter spilled from her mouth as they toppled to the bed together, his body a warm and welcome weight atop hers. His hand lifted to brush the curtain of her hair back from her face, smoothing it away with a gentle palm, watching it fan out across the ivory fabric of his pillows. The lust burning in his irises, surrounding the dilated coals of his pupils, had her blood sizzling, her body eager and squirming as he unbuttoned the shorts that ended just above her knee, but the tenderness in his touch, the caress of his fingers along her cheek, her ear, her neck, while he undressed her had her heart ripe, swollen with love for him.

"Kate?" he panted, splaying his hand beneath the sheer, flowing fabric of her shirt, circling her scar, grazing the expanding branches of her ribs, stroking the underside of a breast, but staring, studying and searching her face.

Her heart was pounding with anticipation, loud and thrumming in her ears, but she raised a hand to his jaw, skimmed her fingertips along the corner of his kiss swollen lips, and drew him down, whispered love into his mouth and gave him everything he'd sought from her in the beginning, gave him her heart.

* * *

He woke the next morning to an empty bed, panic instantly swarming the pit of his stomach, and sat up with a sinking heart. They had spent the entire day in his home, on the beach, sharing smiles and laughter and conversations that were once had only through the speaker of a cellphone. He had expected to wake with her beside him again for the first time in months, to open his eyes to the spill of her hair over his pillows and the heat of her naked skin against his.

He couldn't understand how she could leave after everything he said, after everything-

"I'm out here, Castle."

Rick jerked at the muffled call of her voice and pushed the sheets from his waist, grabbed his boxers and followed the sound of her voice to the balcony. And there she was, curled up in nothing but his shirt from the day before with no intention of leaving to be found.

"Morning," Kate greeted from one of armchairs adorning the balcony, a cup of steaming coffee cradled in her palms and an extra mug sitting on the bistro table placed between the two matching chairs. She shifted her eyes from the sunrise to him, read it all in his face before he could even try to hide it, but her gaze held no hurt, no admonishment or vexation, only understanding and a hint of apology before diverting her eyes to the untouched cup on the table. "Made you coffee."

"I - how did you even know-"

"When we were together, you woke every morning at six, no matter where we were," she murmured, training her eyes back on the streaks of light painting the sky straight ahead. "Usually you would just look around, take in your surroundings, and go back to sleep."

"You actually realized the moment I woke up?" he asked, wonderstruck as he sank down to the arm of her chair, accepting the mug of coffee she nodded towards and taking a quick sip. The hot caffeine seared his tongue, but he didn't notice, his attention on her, always riveted to her. "And you remembered?"

Kate's lips quirked around the ceramic rim of her cup. "It was only a few days, a week and a half if you count the hospital, but I remember all of it."

Castle nudged at her side, secret delight blooming in his chest as she wordlessly shifted in her seat to allow him to slide beneath her and pull her into his lap in the one person chair.

"Kind of impossible to forget," he mused, setting his coffee down in favor of the uncovered skin of her outer thigh and the tangled mane of her hair. "And it felt way longer than a near two weeks."

Kate hummed her assent, angling her back to fit more comfortably against his chest. "I don't know if I'm good for more than a few days, if I can be what you want."

Rick trailed his hand down her thigh, curled his fingers beneath her knee and squeezed. "You're already what I want. And technically, Beckett, we've known each other way longer. I met you over seven years ago."

Her shoulder pressed to his clavicle as she craned her neck back to see him, her cheeks full with the smile spreading over her lips. They had happened quickly, everything about their relationship fast-paced and chaotic, but three times the odds had kept him apart from this woman, and each time, they found their way back to each other. Like hell was he letting her go now, not when he already knew how extraordinary they were together, how they someday could be even better.

"So I'm not worried," he continued, propping his chin on her shoulder, inhaling the scent of coffee and salt and sleep embedded into her skin. "In fact, I'm pretty confident I'll marry you one day, Kate Beckett. Right here on this beach."

The moment he said it, he expected panic, expected her pliant body to go stiff in his arms, for her to finally make her escape, but she surpassed his assumptions, just like always, and relaxed further into his embrace instead.

"Oh yeah?" she hummed, trailing her fingers over the arm draped at her stomach, combing her short nails through the golden fields of hair on his forearm, and no, she didn't sound the least bit panicked. She sounded content, curious, and even a little excited to hear him elaborate.

She was in this. Really in this.

"Y-yeah," he got out, clearing his throat, scrabbling to regain the confidence he had owned mere seconds ago while she smiled up at him, so open and adoring, so different from the cracked quality all of her smiles once held. "We'll have the ceremony in the backyard, while the sun is setting, just like it is now. Alexis will be there, along with my mother, and your friends from the precinct you told me about, the two boys-"

"Ryan and Esposito," she supplied, quietly, as if not to upset the telling of his vision for their future, one he could see far too clearly when it came to her.

"But just the immediate family, because you never wanted an extravagant, overdone wedding and I've already had too many. We'll have something intimate but beautiful, something perfect for just the two of us, and after that, we'll go on our honeymoon. Wherever you want. And it'll just be the beginning, Kate. The beginning of a long life together."

Kate readjusted in his lap, turning so that she could face him, offering him an unhidden look into the raw hope shimmering in her eyes, illuminating her entire being like the sun in the sky. She laced an arm at his neck, curled the other between their chests to unfurl her fingers atop the bones of his sternum, over his beating heart.

"And I vow not to take out a hit on your life at any point in time during this long life together."

He gasped, relishing in the burst of her laughter that she buried in his throat, a little surprised they could joke about that now, but also relieved. He never thought there would be a silver lining to his ex-wife hiring a contract killer to assassinate him, yet here he was, the woman ordered to end his life curled in his lap, teasing him about it.

He loved her.

Kate kissed the column of his throat, nuzzled the taut skin beneath his jaw.

"I want it," she whispered, like it was a secret she could no longer keep bottled up inside. "Everything you said, Castle. And more."

* * *

**A/N: **This final author's note feels especially bittersweet. Writing this story was a wonderful experience and I extend all of my thanks to the ever so talented Kris for allowing me to draw inspiration from her incredible gif set which this fic is based upon - thank you so much for the continued support and enthusiasm. I truly hope this story lived up to even a fraction of your expectations. And to Emily, who was such a wonderful cheerleader, and Nadia, who created the brilliant cover art to accompany this story - I'd be lost without you two, thank you for all the help and general loveliness.

And I'd like to offer the greatest of thank yous to everyone who took the time to read, favorite, follow, and review this story. Your support, kindness, and feedback made this adventure all the more rewarding.


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